Cardinal Tagle offers way to cope with pandemic stress

When life is not exactly as we want it to be during this pandemic, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle on Tuesday said it can be helpful for people to turn themselves towards ‘acceptance’.

He noted that while people want to go back to normal, acceptance of the current reality is a key way to cope.

“While we are here, let’s accept the situation and limitations, the fears and doubts of the situation today,” Tagle said over the “The Jesuit Hour,” an online talk show of the Jesuit Communications.

“If we accept even the inconveniences of all these in faith, we could get out of this as a better humanity,” he said.

The cardinal was responding to a question about his advice for people who feel more anxious, stressed, and depressed due to the Covid-19 crisis.

According to him, denial of the pandemic does not solve the emotional problems that many people are facing.

“As long as we don’t accept it, we can’t face it. As long as we don’t accept that this is really the situation now, we will not be able to see where the hand of God is,” Tagle said.

“And in that acceptance, light will come,” he added. “But if we refuse to accept and we resist even the hardships of this situation, we will just return to the old normal and be even a worse humanity”.

The cardinal once tested positive for Covid-19 when he visited Manila in September last year.

Although asymptomatic, he recalled suffering anxiety during his two-week quarantine.

He said that while all the medical assistance is provided for symptomatic patients, those asymptomatic also need “emotional and spiritual first aid”.

The prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples has been in the country for almost a month now for a vacation. He is set to go back to Rome next week. (CBCP News)

A version of this article was first published on CBCP News.