Dystopia or utopia? Mixed graces

I was the altar server at last night's vigil Mass, the first time I'd served since the parish had shut down due to the coronavirus. Waiting in the back chapel to process out onto the altar was like walking through an abandoned city. A breviary left on a chair, ribbons marking a Lenten Friday. A copy of my Lenten book, tucked on a shelf, awaiting the elderly man who left it there for the next morning's meditation.

Clad in an alb and a blue surgical mask, my glasses fogged over, alone in a chair set far back from the altar,  made it feel even more like I was in a bad SF movie. Would I look down at my hands and see some alien fungus suddenly sprouting there?

Despite this, the church felt safe and inviting. Every window and door open (yes, even in this heat and humidity) gave us a soundtrack. Trains passed twenty-feet away, birds chirped, rain briefly pounded down, leaves stirred in the breeze. It wasn't distracting so much as the contrast intensified the silence within. 

The church's architecture is such that with the doors and windows open it felts as if the church's vault is suspended a few feet off the ground. We were entirely contained in God.