From the Pacific: God, the Pandemic and an Easter Pastoral Message

This Easter Pastoral Message is shared by Upolu Luma Vaai - Principle of the Pacific Theological College. Read the complete message here.

This Holy Week will definitely be coloured with mixed feelings and emotions. As a community of faith we fear that the worse is yet to come as coronavirus invades our Pacific shores. Private and public spaces in most countries of the world including the small Pacific island of Guam are already swimming in the tears of vulnerable individuals and families whose loved ones have been lowered to eternity without a farewell kiss and a proper mourning ritual.

Today this pandemic has already silently creeped through our windows and doors, walking silently through our bodies and minds, touching on what has become our traditional lifeblood and testing everything that has become the ‘correct normal’. The normal community. The normal economy. The normal thinking. The normal theology. Even the normal God. This pandemic has exposed our multiple vulnerabilities, our capacities have been put to the test, and our frailty realized. In fact, our correct normal has in some ways been corrected and reconfigured by what seems to be an invasive force.

As we lower our sail and retrieve our paddles from the rigger of our national canoe this week to honour the Holy Week, we feel that we are caught in what our forebears called “ua taili le La’i”, a haunting wind of disorientation. 

Read the whole text of the message here.