In the month of March 2020, just one year ago, all over the world people began to hear speaking about Coronavirus. Until then, the information about that had been that the virus was spreading in China and there were also some cases in Europe, but no one could imagine that Covid-19 was going to cause a pandemic that would condition and transform life worldwide.
Italy was one of the first countries very affected by the disease, because the number of infections and the aggressiveness of the virus, that every day was claiming a higher number of victims. The Italian Government immediately ordered drastic measures, imposing complete lockdown, creating online platforms for work and school classes, investing money in health care and research to combat the infection and its consequences and searching out how to contain the economic damage caused by some of these measures. However, the country lived all that like a «nightmare»; towns and villages were wrapped in a great silence, broken only by the sirens of the ambulances taking to the hospitals the most seriously ill persons and people remained locked in their homes, mourning their loved ones transported in complete solitude to the cemetery in Army trucks and disoriented by the often contradictory news that were circulating.
The experience was so strong and dramatic that Italian Government instituted, for March 18 of each year, the National Day in memory of the Coronavirus victims, in order to maintain and renew the memory of all the people who died because of this pandemic; this day will be held for the first time this year 2021.
We consider significant to report about this initiative through our page because, as we know, the Coronavirus infection continues spreading throughout the world and it is still strong the wave of pain and death that plagues humanity and has affected also our Religious family of Capuchin Tertiary Sisters. In the months of July and August 2020 and more recently in January 2021, still respecting the strict sanitary measures imposed in these cases, we gave the final greeting to the first sisters of the Congregation who died of Coronavirus in Colombia and in Spain. Moreover, since the beginning of the pandemic, several sisters have been infected in various countries like, in addition to those already mentioned, in El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Poland, Slovakia … We have also accompanied the sorrow of many sisters for the death of their parents, brothers, relatives. And the number of people affected somehow by the pandemic is still increasing if we think about many friends, benefactors, collaborators of our works, known people with whom we shared life … We like to sympathize with the grief of all those who read these lines, be they near or far, known or unknown by us. Suffering makes us more brothers.
In this month «anniversary of the beginning of the pandemic», we invite all of you to remember the people victims of the virus who left us and, in tune with the Lenten season, to rekindle our commitment to prayer begging from God the end of this pandemic and his help to live it as an experience of growth in faith and purification of everything that prevents us from understanding and living the true meaning of our life that, in the mysterious plan of God, is born again and acquires new strength when it crosses the valley of pain and darkness .