Jesus is With Us, Despite Pandemic Challenges

Fr. Jeremy Zipple

The Catholic Church, through the Jesuit community here in Belize, is also sharing a message that despite the challenges of the pandemic, Jesus is still with us. Father Jeremy Zipple is with the St. Martin’s de Porres Parish.

Fr. Jeremy Zipple, St. Martin’s de Porres

“My message this year is going to center around the fact that we have all had a tough year. I felt like it’s the same thing as last year almost. We were really in the pandemic last year and wondering when is this thing ever gonna end, you know, we didn’t even know that Delta was on the way last year. People were getting antsy and tired of being locked down and mostly at home and the schools being closed and my message last year was, guess what, Christ during Holy Week takes the cross. He doesn’t take the glory, he doesn’t take the joyful times, the celebration times, he takes the cross which represents the absolute lowest that we can go as human beings, you know. You notice, if you read through those stories and the gospel about just how low Jesus gets, he’s in the Garden of Gethsemane and in the garden, he says, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”  His friends, Peter, James and John are supposed to be with him, helping him through this moment but they are sleeping. They’ve abandoned him and he calls out, basically saying, Father, take this cup away from me, you know, I don’t want it. And it says that he kinda sweats blood. He’s just in a state of total, almost panic, I would say. We like to see the victorious Jesus who’s conquered all this, but if you really take his humanness seriously, both God and man, he was right there in the loneliness and the utter rejection, feeling the worst of it.  That’s really the message, that no matter how get for us, this pandemic, we’ve all felt those terribly low moments in our lives when we’re just like, can I even make it another day… The message is that Jesus has been there too and because he has walked through it and reached victory, because the resurrection is on the other end of the corner, he will be there walking with us in those moments in our lives.”