Daily gospel finds its temple on the screen

Daily gospel finds its temple on the screen

Who gathers on an ordinary Monday, in the middle of August, to read Ezekiel and pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy? More people than you might think. This Monday's reading was not the kind to lift the spirits: God tells the prophet he is about to take away "the delight of his eyes" and forbids any funeral rite. The passage, Ezekiel 24, 15-24, was the centerpiece for a small devout community that keeps up its liturgical routine in the digital space: gospel, homily, saints of the day and shared prayers.

Ezekiel, the widower with no right to mourn

The text is striking. God announces the death of the prophet's vvife, but Ezekiel may not weep, may not mourn, may not cover his beard nor eat the bread of mourners. "Sigh in silence," he is commanded. In the morning he spoke to the people, and in the evening his vvife died. The next day, he did as he had been told. The stark scene is usually read as a symbol that the people shall not openly lament the destruction of Jerusalem. The digital community that shared it added no commentary: the text stands on its own.

The exact hour of mercy

Alongside the gospel, it was noted that the ideal is to pray the Chaplet at 3:00 pm, the hour when tradition places the death of Jesus. In addition, the Sayings of the Desert Fathers were shared, sayings of the first Christian monks compiled in the 17th century by the Jesuit Heribert Rosweyde and translated with the participation of the monks of Solesmes. The full liturgy, in short: from the widower who may not weep to mercy with a fixed hour, everything fits into a routine that takes no holidays.

The internet has not killed the liturgy: it has moved it from pew to digital bench. At three in the afternoon, mercy still keeps its hour, even if the clock is the one on the device. And Ezekiel, surely, would have had nowhere to hide his tears.