That is just one part of a remarkable and inspiring address delivered recently by Archbishop Emeritus John R. Quinn from San Francisco.

You can read the whole thing at America magazine, but here’s one nugget among many:

I was a seminarian when Fulton Sheen was ordained a bishop. I was choir director for the Mass and had to go early to the church to get things set up. When I arrived an hour or so before the Mass, I saw in the empty church Fulton Sheen sitting alone and silent in a small, side chapel before the Blessed Sacrament. This example I commend to you, dear brothers, at an exceedingly painful time–to drink the waters of hope and endurance, of patience and perseverance from the pierced heart of the One who knows what it is like to be me. I recommend that you give an hour each day to personal prayer–to being with Him whom we know loves us. It is in this kind of prayer that the Holy Spirit can impart interior peace, which enables us to endure in the face of overwhelming and unsolvable problems. This kind of prayer imparts the fortitude and the living hope that makes us begin again each day and enables us to give to others the consolation we receive. Paul puts it this way, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the utterly merciful Father, the God whose consolation never fails us! He consoles us in all our troubles, so that we in turn may be able to console others in any trouble of theirs and to share with them the consolation we ourselves receive from God.” (II Cor. 1:3-4)

And so, in a difficult time we should not forget that the great works of God have been accomplished in darkness. The people fled Egypt in the darkness; they crossed the Red Sea in the darkness; the Lord Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the darkness of night; He gave us the Eucharist and the priesthood in the darkness of the Last Supper; he died on the Cross when the Gospel says “darkness covered the earth.” He lay in the darkness of the tomb. On the third day, He rose again in the darkness, and the empty tomb was discovered “early in the morning while it was still dark.” God is at work even in the darkness.

Do yourself a favor and read the rest. It may be one of the most affirming and hopeful approaches to this crisis that I’ve heard.  (Preachers take note: there’s a gold mine here if you’re looking for material for this Sunday’s homily, to mark Good Shepherd Sunday and the World Day of Prayer for Vocations.)