March 27, 2020
I want to share with you a vision I had. It happened at dawn and it was the sight of just one scene: The Lord Jesus sitting on a high chair, like a throne. He was in a Long-sleeved tunic, his hair was long and back. His expression was strong and full of love and mercy. But He was not alone. Beside him was a female figure, seated next to Jesus, but on a lower bench. Three things called attention to her. First, she had long hair on the right and left side of her face, but in the middle, her hair was cut and tied up. Second, she had the appearance of a defeated person. Third, I knew that that female figure was Corona, but Corona without a crown. Her hair was cut and tied up and it looked like the shape of the new Coronavirus like we see it every day on television. But the fact is that it was all very fast, it was just like a scene that appears and then disappears.
Bishop Roberto Schuler, z(left) with Archbishop Ricardo Alcaraz, Primate of ICCEC Asia and Bishop of the Diocese of The Visayas, Philippines(right)
Immediately I kind of woke up and then went to my office, right here at home, to pray and do my daily Bible reading. It was in the book of Hosea chapter 10, verse 12, that I read the following: Sow justice, reap mercy and prepare the field of Pousio (which means prepare the new field). It is time to seek the Lord until He comes and rains His justice over us. This verse jumped out of the Holy Bible and immediately put itself in line with the vision I had just had. The Lord Jesus is seated on the throne, where he received all power and all authority.
Corona will be defeated, but until then, as the text of the prophet Hosea says, it is time to seek the Lord, it is a time of justice but also of mercy. Above all, it is necessary to prepare a new field in our hearts.
In this sense, for all of us who are in quarantine, the watchword and the divine imperative at this time is that, instead of staying at home bored, terrified and complaining about everything and everyone. We need to use this time as an invitation to open our bibles, as an invitation to moments of prayer and praise. We need more love and solidarity within our homes. We need to seek the Lord until He comes and this storm that shakes the world passes. This is what I saw, but also what I read in the Holy Scriptures of our faith. That was also the understanding that I had of everything that by God’s mercy I received early in the morning.
With love and a spirit of prayer, I pass this message on to you who now hears me. Do not be afraid. Do not give up to fear, despair and anxiety. We can wait on the Lord Jesus. He overcame the power of sin, chaos and death and that is the victory that overcomes the world: our faith. Time to prepare the ground and the land of our hearts. A time of hope and not of panic and despair. The Lord Jesus sitting on the throne, the Lord Jesus who has all power and all authority in heaven and on earth, is also here with us. And because He lives, we can believe in tomorrow.
Our prayer at that moment is the same as that of the psalmist: I look up at the mountains, where will help come from? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. We pray in the name of Jesus that the multiplier power that this virus has to infect people will be cut and stopped. We pray that in that time we can turn our hearts to God, to our neighbor and to the nature that surrounds us. We pray that we can get out of this storm that plagues the whole planet, better human beings, more believers and active in transforming our own lives, as well as in transforming human society.
God bless!
Roberto Schuler, Auxiliary Bishop International Communion of the Charismatic Episcopal Church, ICCEC
