Savio Salesian College, like everybody else, is on lockdown. We had just begun our celebration of Lent, reflected on the needs of others, chosen 'what to give up' and started our Lenten charity, when this exploded into our lives.

The school seems desolate although it has stayed open for those who are the sons and daughters of our essential workers – our heroes. Those people who go into work never knowing if they will contract the virus themselves but willing to serve others: a sense of duty which is admirable. What lessons our students can learn from them!

Every time I go out for my 'exercise', I wonder if the jogger going past is the next victim and pray that our students do not contract it. I, like many others, lost my way for a few days. Self-isolation soon became self – imprisonment to my way of thinking. I soon began to appreciate social media. Far from being the demon it was becoming, it became my opportunity for daily mass and the Salesian way. I was very grateful to it.

I was going to use this photograph in our Easter Assembly when we returned to school but I looked at it last week and thought: when?

Now.

This picture shows a tomb. Whose tomb? Jesus – the innocent man who was condemned to a brutal, humiliating death. He left behind a grieving mother who stood by Him through thick and thin. He left behind friends who behaved in the most human of ways: one betrayed Him; one denied Him; and one stuck doggedly to following Him, caring for His Mother, no matter what the consequences; and nine of them ran away. Which one am I most like?

Three long days Jesus lay buried: days that are a time for reflection. Then, through the darkness, came first a glimpse and then a burst of light. Jesus was risen!

As Monsignor Armitage, Rector of the Shrine at Walsingham, said during the Rededication, this lock-down could become a time of reflection for all of us, 'a time to get our lives back on track.'

This year would have seen our school's third pilgrimage to Walsingham, a special time for us in Walsingham's special year: the year of Rededication of England as Mary's Dowry. Perhaps our pilgrimage can still happen with her help. Our students love Walsingham and to go there will mean life is regaining its purpose again.

Outside, the May blossom riots across the country (as do those blessed dandelions!) and birds fly back and forth to their new families – signs of the normality of life.

I hope school staff and students keep well, keep their faith and welcome the return to school when it happens.

Hazel Fort
Savio Salesian College Chaplaincy Team
(Photo: Garden Tomb, Church of Jesus Christ Gospel Media Collection, permitted use)