Religious Rituals

Rituals are more than a routine. It printed indelible memories in us from birth to death- From baptism or dedication to birthday parties, holidays, family reunions, First Holy Communion, Prom, graduations, House blessings, weddings, anniversaries, funerals, and memorials. Rituals provide us a stable resource for connection and meaning-making (Imber-Black, 2020). Religious rituals bent but did not break during COVID-19. The pandemic had challenged the catholic church to find new ways to conduct liturgical celebrations, religious rituals, and holidays to accompany the faithful.

Easter Triduum

Due to worldwide social distancing orders on March 2020, the Pope established directives through the Vatican Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Pope on how “to celebrate Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil, and Easter Sunday in line with these government guidelines” (Miller, 2020). Millions of people without the physical presence of the faithful will join the Pope through multi-media: radio, television, and the internet. The Crucifix of St. Marcellus and the Salus Populi Romani icon will be present during all the liturgical celebrations or the Easter Triduum, “the three days in which the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus are commemorated” (Vatican News, 2019).

Some bishops suspended the custom of abstaining from meat on Fridays during Lent(Dein et al, 2020).

Holy Thursday

April 9, 2020. Holy Thursday signifies the end of Lent. The Pope did not preside over the Chrism Mass. However, he celebrated The Mass in Coena Domini (of the Lord’s Supper) at 6 pm on the Altar of the Chair in St Peter’s Basilica. The liturgy commemorates the institution of the Eucharist. The traditional washing of the feet ritual was omitted. The procession of the Blessed Sacrament to the Altar of Repose was also canceled.

Good Friday

April 10, 2020. The Catholic Church celebrated the Liturgy of the Passion of Christ with the Adoration of the Cross commemorating the Lord’s crucifixion and death at 6 pm in St. Peter’s Basilica. The Crucifix of St. Marcellus was covered. Father Raniero Cantalamessa, The Preacher of the Papal Household conducted a meditation, then the Crucifix was revealed. Adoration followed without the traditional kissing of the Cross. At 9 pm in St Peter’s Square, The Stations of the Cross or Via Crucis took place where The Cross was carried by two groups: prisoners from Padua, who wrote some of the meditations, and doctors and nurses from the Vatican Healthcare Department representing the front liners amidst pandemic. They made stops “around Bernini’s colonnade and the obelisk at the center of the Square.”

Black Saturday

April 11, 2020. At 9 pm, Easter Vigil begins in St. Peter’s Basilica.

After the blessing of the fire behind the Altar of the Confession and the processional entrance with the lights of the Basilica instead of the lighting candles accompanied the three “Lumen Christi” invocations, the Pope presided the Liturgy of the Word and Celebrations of the Eucharist. No baptisms were performed during the liturgy. To announce the Resurrection, the bells of the Basilica rang at the moment of the “Gloria.”(Vatican News, 2020).Pope Francis presided a Vigil Mass and preached a riveting message of hope to humanity in an empty St Peter’s Basilica under a terrifying coronavirus outbreak where two-thirds of the world’s population was under quarantine or restrictions. Pope Francis told shared his global audience the implication of the resurrection of Jesus, “tonight we acquire a fundamental right that can never be taken away from us: the right to hope.”(America Magazine, 2020). A theological error and ethically hazardous that some scholars claim is the certainty of Christian hope… To say “I hope” already acknowledges that one may not get what one wants… understanding hope as a disciplined persistence (rather than an affect or conviction) enables hope to continue even when satisfaction is unforeseeable (Alimi et al, 2020). 

Easter Sunday

At 11 am, the Pope celebrated Easter Sunday Mass at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica and proclaimed the Gospel in Greek and Latin. At the end of Mass, he went to the Sacristy to remove his vestments, before returning to the Altar of the Confession. From there, he delivered his Urbi et orbi message and give his Easter blessing(Vatican News, 2020). He ended his message by banning “indifference, self-centeredness, division and forgetfulness.”(Vatican, 2020)

In celebrating Easter, people reminisce the Resurrection with masses, colorful flowers, family activities, festive dinners, and games for children. But amidst COVID-19, people celebrate it without extended family and friends. No gigantic community Easter Egg hunting. Many families created their own–“in a yard, or a living room or a studio apartment. And while egg prices skyrocketed due to coronavirus panic buying, some communities invented a paper egg hunt ritual, taping colorful paper eggs on the outside of houses for children, walking with their parents, to discover.” There is still sharing of food with extended family and friends but went virtual (Imber-Black, 2020).

Sunday Masses

March 2020. Sunday Mass was held virtually in accordance with local health policies. Bishops worldwide suspended Sunday Obligation. Some dioceses canceled or prohibited priests from performing sacraments such as penance and anointing of the sick while other dioceses allowed it in accordance with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations and local health directives. Some churches were open for individual prayer(Miller et al, 2020).

March 29, 2020. In the UK, the priest of St Wulstan’s Catholic Church specified in the parish bulletin that “Although there will be no public liturgies, for the time being, I shall continue to celebrate Mass for the Parish at 9.30 am on weekdays in the house and on Sundays at 10.30 am in the church”. The church attendees were provided with websites of two churches that were live streaming Sunday Mass(Bryson et al, 2020).

In Poland, drive-thru confessions were conducted by a “Catholic Priest who sits in the church parking lot while wearing a mask”(Xiong et al, 2020).

In the Philippines with 81% Catholic Faithfuls, Catholic Churches had taken action to provide the public with  “online-based Church masses, community prayers, spiritual recollections and retreats, and eucharistic adoration and processions”(del Castillo et al, 2020). 

In New Zealand, Lyndsay Freer of the Catholic Diocese of Auckland explained;

“Because our churches are in lockdown, we are attempting to provide recorded daily Masses to our Catholic people via our diocesan website and the Bishop’s Facebook…we are negotiating to have some television time during this period, and are very grateful that this is likely to be a possibility”(Oxholm  et al, 2020)

In Italy, Bishop Nerbini allowed the group of Doctors attending COVID-19 patients to distribute communion, and read prayers on their bedside (Eliverä, 2020).

To creatively worship, there is a need for further research on privatization of religiosity and secularization, asynchronous religious rituals, technologically mediated religious innovation and distribution, and civil engagement(Baker et al 2020).

References

1. Imber-Black, E. (2020). Rituals in the Time of COVID-19: Imagination, Responsiveness, and the Human Spirit. https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12581

2.Holy Thursday and the Easter Triduum – Vatican News. (n.d.). Retrieved March 5, 2021, from https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2019-04/holy-thursday-and-the-easter-triduum.html

3.Dein, S., Loewenthal, K., Lewis, C. A., & Pargament, K. I. (2020, January 2). COVID-19, mental health and religion: an agenda for future research. Mental Health, Religion and Culture. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2020.1768725

4.Celebrating a unique Easter with Pope Francis during Covid-19 – Vatican News. (n.d.). Retrieved March 5, 2021, from https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2020-04/celebrating-a-unique-easter-with-pope-francis-during-covid-19.html

5.Pope Francis delivers stirring message of hope to humanity in its “darkest hour” at Easter Vigil | America Magazine. (n.d.). Retrieved March 5, 2021, from https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/04/11/pope-francis-delivers-stirring-message-hope-humanity-its-darkest-hour-easter-vigil

6.Alimi, T., Antus, E. L., Balthrop-Lewis, A., Childress, J. F., Dunn, S., Green, R. M., … Stalnaker, A. (2020, September 1). COVID-19 and Religious Ethics. Journal of Religious Ethics. Blackwell Publishing Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1111/jore.12328

7.Celebrating a unique Easter with Pope Francis during Covid-19 – Vatican News. (n.d.). Retrieved March 5, 2021, from https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2020-04/celebrating-a-unique-easter-with-pope-francis-during-covid-19.html

8.Miller, A., Castro Bigalli, A., & Sumanam, P. (2020, April 1). The coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic, social distancing, and observance of religious holidays: Perspectives from Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism. International Journal of Critical Illness and Injury Science. Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications. https://doi.org/10.4103/IJCIIS.IJCIIS_60_20

9.Bryson, J. R., Andres, L., & Davies, A. (2020). COVID-19, Virtual Church Services and a New Temporary Geography of Home. Tijdschrift Voor Economische En Sociale Geografie, 111(3), 360–372. https://doi.org/10.1111/tesg.12436

10.Xiong, J. J., Isgandarova, N., & Panton, A. E. (2020, March 20). COVID-19 demands theological reflection: Buddhist, muslim, and christian perspectives on the present pandemic. International Journal of Practical Theology. De Gruyter Open Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijpt-2020-0039

11.del Castillo, F. A., Biana, H. T., & Joaquin, J. J. B. (2020). Correspondence churchinaction: The role of religious interventions in times of COVID-19. Journal of Public Health (United Kingdom), 42(3), 633–634. https://doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdaa086

12.Oxholm, T., Rivera, C., Schirrman, K., & Hoverd, W. J. (2020). New Zealand Religious Community Responses to COVID-19 While Under Level 4 Lockdown. Journal of Religion and Health. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-020-01110-8

13.Eliverä, E. S. (2020). Life and Churchlife During Pandemic: Bioethical Issues and Church Response in the Time of COVID-19. In MST Review (Vol. 22, Issue 1). https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/03/25/

14.Baker, J. O., Martí, G., Braunstein, R., Whitehead, A. L., & Yukich, G. (2020). Religion in the Age of Social Distancing: How COVID-19 Presents New Directions for Research. Sociology of Religion, 81(4), 357–370. https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/sraa039