Easter quarantine: prayer in timelessness

It’s Octave of Easter. Time has stopped. These Eastertide days are passing in a unique way. Timelessness encircles, likely everything is standing. We could never had this strong feeling which had touched us this Easter. We do not see the end neither of the pandemic or the quarantine, nor of the loneliness. In fact, we do not know at all, whether and when we can expect a solution or a cure to be found. We have understood for a good month by now, that our faith and the power of prayer are the only straws we can grasp at in this situation. A month has been that every noon, István Kuzmányi, Chief Editor of the Új Ember and Magyar Kurír newspapers, places the Eucharistic in the Saint Michael Church of Angyalföld (Budapest) and leads a prayer through live video broadcasting. We can all join him, so to hope –at least in spirit- that we do not have to go too long with these hard days.

The Magyar Kurír editorial office has an outstanding habit: every noon the staff gathers to pray the Angelus together. Better say: they used to pray. Since middle of March there is no way to pray so. Yet, this has given the idea to take advantage of the online facilities, and to have such a prayer against the coronavirus, to which anyone, anywhere can join either in the country or around the globe. So, the Magyar Kurír and the Új ember in cooperation with the Secretariat of the Eucharistic Congress and its three messengers, András Csókay, Csaba Böjte and Róbert Szikora, jointly made a call to pray every noon together for the ending of the pandemic.

At first, timelessness itself might sound quite frightening, since all the events of our life can be divided into the pieces of the seconds. We get used to live according to strict schedules, our days were determined by the time of hours and minutes, making the illusion that our life could have been kept under control. Only once in a while do we allow ourselves the luxury of quitting the tread-wheel, getting totally lost into our thoughts and feelings, to be ourselves just by existing for a few moments. Being afraid of all those that have no visible beginning and end, we rarely present ourselves with the feeling of timelessness. Generally we do not realise the real values of the moments that are offering far more than a two-day precisely scheduled program.

Those who are praying regularly, understand perfectly well that nothing is more efficient in transmitting us to the dimension of timelessness than that of the prayer itself. When István Kuzmányi has started his noon prayer in front of the camera, it happened many times that the sound was not perfect at all. Sometimes it was torn, interrupted or just fell silent. Yet, -except for one single case- everybody stepped over the technical problems, and ensured that the important point was not about to hear every bit of the two prayers – the offering worships of Cardinal-Archbishop Péter Erdő and of Pope Frances – but the fact that such a joint prayer event could have been materialised, it is on broadcast, so that everybody can go silent for a quarter of an hour at the location where they happen to be at that moment, thus the event has been raised to mystical, timeless heights.

The number of pandemic prayers since the COVID-19 outbreak cannot be esteemed. There are those who ask or promise, then those who say thanks for the possibility.

It might be that we should still pray for weeks and months until we can leave our homes and go public without masks and gloves with a relaxed heart. But one is for surely certain: meditations, talks, prayers and the internal silence we have been going through during the pandemic times are having a phenomenal power, enabling us a real rebirth. Comparing to this, the physical step out of the quarantine itself will turn to a tiny, marginal moment only.

The common prayer is available to everyone, joining is open daily between 11.55 - 12.10 at the YouTube of Magyar Kurír.



IEC Secretariat