SALT LAKE CITY – Easter Sunday 2020 is unlike any previous Easter.
With people forced to stay at home, many churches are celebrating one of the holiest Christian holidays by moving their services online.
“No one has ever experienced anything like this,” said Father Martin Diaz, the pastor at the Cathedral of the Madeleine. “The idea that we would not be able to meet on Easter Sunday is so very sad.”
In front of a mostly empty church, Father Diaz and several other clergy members celebrated the Catholic mass.
The service was live streamed on YouTube.
“There is a deep realization that thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people are doing the same thing at the same time. Even though we are physically distant from one another, we are one people, one humanity,” Diaz said. “Even this difficulty of a pandemic, a worldwide crisis cannot keep us apart.”
There is no timetable for when churches will be able to reopen their doors.
“Whether it’s a month from now or two months from now, we will be here again,” Diaz said. “That first Sunday when we are able to be back, the joy will be the joy of Easter.”
Diaz is confident the measures being taken now will allow life to return to normal while uniting people of all faiths.
“People who are Christians and non-Christians and everyone around the world is not looking to themselves but looking to the other,” Diaz said.
