Marco Iazzolino

The virus is a strange Latin word. Its first use was in 1892 by a Russian scientist to define a disease (virus) that affected the tobacco plant. It has a special characteristic that is singular and has no plural. The word virus is born full of loneliness and individualism, which affects the single person, the single plant, the single animal. The virus touches my person, my family, my city, my country, and now my world. I live the virus as an individual and not a collective enemy. I skip the queue to go to the pharmacy. I finish all the milk at the supermarket. I wear the mask because I have to defend myself against the virus that could affect me.

But today, the CoronaVirus touches everyone and has become plural. We do not know a cure for COVID 19 yet, but we know as Camillus’ sons and daughters that the antidote to the disease” is to live (also) in a plurality that is “a thousand hands and a thousand hearts.” The illness “loses its component of pain” if it becomes a place of the rediscovery of the Other, of we, of the solidarity that dares to overcome the singular “I” towards a plural “I” that has deep care of the “We” healing the fear. Closed in the house, in community, in our room, living intensely as a “cornerstone discarded by the builders” (that is, without the possibility of being a direct part of the construction) we can transform this experience into an exciting and alchemical discovery of the “vaccine” that changes lives because it changes our gaze: the Love of God. Courage!