In “Theology for Millennials” on Monday, April 19, 2021, Mexican Father Mario Arroyo Martinez shared with Exaudi’s readers his article “Love in the Time of COVID.”
* * *
One of the most curious consequences of the pandemic is the effect it has had on love. It’s not a joke. It has deeply affected human relations and, among them, particularly a loving relationship. The pandemic has made difficult or harmed the loving dimension of human life in very different ways: postponed weddings, single people who find no occasion to meet a partner, broken marriages from the stress of lockdown or of an economic disaster, and many other ways of making difficult, blocking or hindering love.
One of these ways, which is particularly painful, is the wedding situation. We all know the excitement and enthusiasm with which they are usually prepared. Often it entails also a considerable investment of money, in which priest, church, banquet, celebration site, music, arrangements, and so many other things must come together.
To postpone it isn’t a children’s game but an arduous logistics task, in which often the “circle can’t be squared,” and new and onerous expenses are incurred. In this time of pandemic, there have been weddings that were postponed three times: first in May of 2020, then in November of the same year, then in May of 2021, and finally scheduled for May 2022, waiting two years to get married!
In face of such situations, the attitudes have varied, depending also on the importance given to the living of the faith and the supernatural view with which the inconvenience is faced. Some, who were bold, married despite everything, with a profusion of designed masks, hoping that the guests wouldn’t be infected.
Others have been married in a reserved ceremony, with very few guests, masks, and safe distancing. Others have preferred to live stream their wedding, having a large number of guests and a well-activated table of gifts.
Others have postponed their wedding but, sadly, opted to start living together. They want the Sacrament but are not willing to forego living together. Finally, other more heroic ones have delayed their wedding and not lived together, bearing patiently the uncertainty of the wait.
The pandemic has not only affected weddings but also engagements, either at the beginning, because of the difficulty of meeting, or because plans had to be made on which they agreed, given that everything is closed. It has also made it difficult for those who don’t have a fiancé/fiancée and would like to have one.
Given the drastic restrictions to social life, it’s made it difficult to meet new people. Some are anxious because the lockdown means they are running out of time. Many of the engaged, especially those distanced as they lived in different cities, have taken recourse to the social networks.
There have been Zoom engagements or others on Google.meet, but we all know that, when it comes to love, the virtual presence is not the same as the real presence., and this makes a dent in different relationships. What is a reality in human love is also true in divine love: a virtual Mass is never the same as a real one although, sadly, many have become accustomed to the former and what they do with God they wouldn’t do with their partner.
Finally, there is the sad case of those that the pandemic has resulted in the wrecking of their love, less grave if they were only engaged. Someone who might have asked his girlfriend to marry him in early March of last year might well have had a difficult time. It would have been better if they left it for later, for better times.
But the seriously engaged, namely, those engaged for a long time, might not have been able to endure the test and broken their engagement. Much harder, however, and unfortunately more frequent has been the number of marriages that have broken due to the lockdown, or those where intra-family violence has increased notably.
To be locked in a small space and having to work from there hasn’t made relationships easier. What is true, however, is that a love that has withstood the COVID-19 test has come out stronger than it was before and better able to face life’s storms.
