While many are stuck at home during the coronavirus pandemic, Pope Francis says that there are many small acts of love and kindness one can do for others without leaving the house.
“We must rediscover the concreteness of little things, small gestures of attention we can offer those close to us, our family, our friends. We must understand that in small things lies our treasure,” Pope Francis said in an interview in an Italian newspaper published on March 18.
“For example, a hot meal, a caress, a hug, a phone call… They are familiar gestures of attention to the details of everyday life that make life meaningful and that create communion and communication among us,” the pope said.
Pope Francis said that the quarantine many people are living through right now provides a particular opportunity to grow in personal relationships at home, but this requires disconnecting from technology to spend quality time together.
“In their homes, families often eat together in great silence, but not as a result of listening to each other, rather because the parents watch television while they eat, and children are on their mobile phones,” he said. “Here there is no communication, whereas listening to each other is important because that’s how we can understand the needs, efforts, desires of the other.”
The pope also asked everyone to reach out to those who are alone or who have lost loved ones. “Consolation must not be everyone’s commitment,” he added.
In the interview with Italian journalist Paolo Rodari published in La Repubblica, Pope Francis explained what was on his mind when he made a short walking pilgrimage through the empty streets of Rome on Sunday to pray in front of a Marian icon in the Basilica of St. Mary Major and a crucifix in another church that had been used in prayer processions during the plagues in Rome’s history.
“I asked the Lord to stop the epidemic: ‘Lord, stop it with your hand.’ That’s what I prayed for,” he said. CNA
