Pope Francis Prays For Those Who Have Died From Coronavirus

“Our God is close and asks us to be close to each other, not to move away from each other,” he urged.

Francis said during this time of crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, Catholics are called to show even greater closeness to each other.

“We cannot, perhaps, get physically closer because of the fear of contagion,” he noted, “but yes, we can awaken in ourselves an attitude of closeness among us: with prayer, with help, [there are] many ways to be close.”

He said people be close to each other “because our God is close, he wanted to accompany us in life.”

“For this reason, we are not isolated people,” he emphasized.

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Speaking about divine law, Francis explained that God does not hand down rules like a far-off leader or dictator.

“We know by revelation that it is a fatherly, fatherly closeness that accompanies his people by giving them the gift of the Law,” he said.

He explained that God wrote the laws on the stone with his own hands, and after giving the stone tablets to Moses, he does not go away.

God walks with his people, he said, but in the first few pages of the Bible, people respond with the opposite, by trying to “get away from God.”

“He gets close and we get away,” he stated.

Adam and Eve hide from God because they are ashamed, because they have sinned, the pope explained: “Sin leads us to hide, not wanting closeness.”

The second attitude of running away from God is demonstrated by when Cane killed his brother Abel, saying “I am not my brother's keeper.”

“We ask the Lord for the grace to be close to each other; do not hide from each other; do not wash your hands, as Cain did, of the problem of others,” the pope urged.

“Neighbors, proximity, nearness,” he said. “‘Indeed, what great nation has the gods so close to him, as the Lord our God is close to us, every time we invoke Him?’”

Hannah Brockhaus is Catholic News Agency's senior Rome correspondent. She grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a degree in English from Truman State University in Missouri.