‘Finding Christ in the Crisis: What the Pandemic Can Teach Us…’
This is at the heart of, and the title of, a new book, co-authored by Michael Heinlein, editor of SimplyCatholic.com and Our Sunday Visitor (OSV) contributor, and Canadian priest Fr. Harrison Ayre, Pastor of St. Peter’s in Nanaimo, British Columbia, and Doctoral Candidate at Maryvale Institute in Theological Anthropology.
The work, published by OSV, «focuses on spiritual lessons we can learn from the pandemic: what God might be saying to us, how has He prepared us to face this time…,» Heinlein tells ZENIT.
As the life of the Church has been greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and now its resurgence around the globe, many faithful–the book recognizes–experienced sentiments of feeling disconnected from Christ and the Church with public Masses, in varying degrees depending on the place, being suspended and life in the parish disrupted.
«As Catholics,» the authors express, «we are wrestling with the theological and spiritual ramifications of the pandemic and how to discern God’s will in this time of crisis.»
In the text, Fr. Harrison Ayre and Michael Heinlein shed light on what God might be saying to us now, both in the Church and in the world.
By interpreting scripture and examining realities of the Catholic faith, they underscore that despite the limits the crisis places on us, such as access to sacraments and our pastors and religious, the pandemic’s effects are «by no means a defeat.»
Rather, this ought be an opportunity, they reason, for men and women of faith, «to rediscover the heart of our Catholic identity and to find God in the midst of the storm.»
Available for purchase in paperback or Kindle at a mere $1.95, this guide is available for orders here: https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Christ-Crisis-Pandemic-Teach/dp/168192773X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=