Death cannot drive people away from God, says the bishop who is recovering from COVID-19

ROME - A bishop in northern Italy, intubated for 17 days and almost dead from COVID-19, celebrated an evening outdoor mass on June 14 with doctors, nurses, hospital staff and Caritas volunteers who helped others during the pandemic.

Bishop Derio Olivero of Pinerolo said he wanted to show gratitude by celebrating Mass so that those who take care of others can "spend an hour enjoying the care of God, because God always takes care of us, even during the pandemic ".

About 400 people, including the head of the intensive care unit at the Agnelli hospital in Pinerolo, attended Mass in the courtyard of the diocesan seminary; everyone in the congregation wore masks and the chairs were 6 feet apart.

For a believer, there is always a future with God, and not even death can derail it, said the bishop before Mass. “I saw how death could come - for two or three days it was very close. But you know how fantastic it is to be able to say: “Death, I don't want you; you will not have the last word, because God is stronger than you and you will never block my future '”.

"God takes care of us and that's really what leaves us breathless," said the bishop, referring to how coronavirus attacks a person's lungs. “I know what it means not to be able to breathe from COVID; it's awful."

"One day we will all stop breathing," he said, "but our affections will remain, and the care of God will not stop even then."

The bishop was hospitalized from March 19 to May 5.

In his homily, Olivero observed how philosophers and theologians for millennia have examined the question of why evil exists.

"Evil can have the face of an illness - we've seen it," he said. "Or the death of a loved one - we've seen it too."

Faced with anything from a toothache to a terminal illness, everyone asked why evil exists, "and we asked it even more often at this time for the coronavirus," said the bishop.

But he encouraged people at mass to notice that no healthy person ever said, "In the end, something bad is happening to me." Rather, they always say, “This shouldn't be happening. Life shouldn't be that way. "

When a person goes for a hike in the mountains or receives a warm hug or is helped in a time of difficulty, "think, 'Ah, this is life'," he said.

Olivero said he was unable to eat anything for days while he was in the hospital. "I dreamed of gorgonzola", a spicy cheese originating from northern Italy. And, after a couple of days of drinking only water, a nurse asked if she wanted a teaspoon full of stirred coffee. "Wow," he said. "It was amazing."

"All of this tells us that we were born for beautiful and beautiful things," he said. “At a time when we all feel more fragile and exposed, at risk, even closer to or immersed in suffering, we must remember that God created us, shaped and formed us for what is beautiful and good. And that's fantastic. "