I am a diocesan priest in the parish of Cyrill and Method in the Archdiocese of Vienna, and a teacher at the "Come, let us return to the LORD, it is he who has rent, but he will heal us; he has struck us, but he will bind our wounds. He will revive us after two days; on the third day he will raise us up, to live in his presence."
Today's reading from the book of Hosea express hope and a call to conversion. The LORD will heal, both from external wounds of war, hunger, sickness, but also and above all does he desire to heal us from the interior wounds of selfishness, greed, incosiderateness. " it is love that I desire, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings."
The prophet's words are for us, too. We are going through a difficult time, but go through it with the hope, indeed the conviction that the wounds and the suffering will be healed.
The time is not stolen from us, just given us a different manner. It is a time to rethink various customs and habits, a time to trust one another and to trust in God, a time to show love through voluntary or obligatory self-denial, a time to hear God's voice: "Let us know, let us strive to know the LORD." In short, it is a special Lent, a time of hope-filled preparation for the new life of resurrection.
When this time has passed, as it will pass, we may mourn over some events and struggle with various upsets in our patterns of life, but we shall also see that this time, in its one way, was a fruitful time of reflection and conversion, a time to learn love anew. And the time will be more fruitful to the extent that we don't only stick it out, but accept it and use it, as a special time given to us.