It’s not just American churches denying science. Margaret Court’s Life Church in Perth has stated that the “blood of Jesus” will protect their congregations, along with prayer and hand sanitiser. Greek Orthodox leaders said their 373,000 faithful in Australia could not contract coronavirus from a communion cup because “we believe that no disease or illness can exist in holy communion, which we believe is the body and blood of Christ”. Enough to make an epidemiologist weep. Loading Given all this, perhaps it is understandable that so many baulk at footage of our Prime Minister, publicly worshipping in church last year and now praying with a coronavirus prayer group. After all, Jesus warned against people making a show of public prayer (“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others.” Matthew 6:5) and told people to pray privately, in their own rooms. Prayer is not meant to be a performance. And Christianity should not be about preservation of power, but interrogation of it. People are rightly cynical when politicians seem to offer prayer as solutions for intractable problems instead of acting them, though with COVID-19 Morrison could hardly be accused of inaction. I wonder, though, given there are many millions of people praying now for good health, for the vulnerable, for the scared and the lonely, whether we should so instinctively shame the very act of prayer itself. The Prime Minister is a genuine Christian who is open about his faith – he is going to pray about everything, often, and yet when evidence emerges he has been then some, immediately, furiously, wield this as instant evidence of insincerity. Or distraction.

Even the renowned prime ministerial critic Mike Carlton was moved this week to remind Twitter that "Morrison is shouldering a burden unmatched by any other Prime Minister". We must remember prayer is a non-partisan activity: according to the Pew Research Centre, the same number of Democrats and Republicans pray every day. People who pray are less likely to drink, be depressed, and more likely to be selfless in relationships. There is also some evidence that praying, instead of distracting from the task at hand, focuses it. A 2013 study from Georgia State University found that “praying about a problem appeared to liberate cognitive resources that are presumably otherwise consumed by worry and rumination, leaving individuals better able to process other information, and additionally to bias attention to favour detection of problem-relevant information”. Some pray, some meditate, others still the mind. It’s the time for it. There have been some beautiful prayers circling the internet lately. Like this one from Brother Richard Hendrick, a Capuchin Franciscan living in Ireland, that went viral for good reason. It reads, in part:

So we pray and we remember that: Yes there is fear. But there does not have to be hate. Yes there is isolation. But there does not have to be loneliness.

Yes there is panic buying. But there does not have to be meanness. Yes there is sickness. But there does not have to be disease of the soul Yes there is even death.

But there can always be a rebirth of love. Loading My favourite Lutheran pastor, Nadia Bolz Weber tweeted, “Morning by morning, new mercies I see. Also, things I need my waxer to deal with eventually.” She has also, like so many others, prayed for those who care for the sick, for those who grieve in isolation, for the caregivers, the grocery workers, the grieving, and "for the ability to turn off the fear-mongering and unhelpful commentary and worst-case scenario click bait, strengthen us". Let’s not scoff at prayer; millions are reaching to God and the good, hoping we can somehow survive. Let’s be gentle with each other.

Julia Baird is the author of Phosphorescence: On awe, wonder and the things that sustain you when the world goes dark. Lockdown by Brother Richard Yes there is fear. Yes there is isolation. Yes there is panic buying.

Yes there is sickness. Yes there is even death. But, They say that in Wuhan after so many years of noise You can hear the birds again.

They say that after just a few weeks of quiet The sky is no longer thick with fumes But blue and grey and clear. They say that in the streets of Assisi People are singing to each other

across the empty squares, keeping their windows open so that those who are alone may hear the sounds of family around them. They say that a hotel in the West of Ireland

Is offering free meals and delivery to the housebound. Today a young woman I know is busy spreading fliers with her number through the neighbourhood So that the elders may have someone to call on.

Today churches, synagogues, mosques and temples are preparing to welcome and shelter the homeless, the sick, the weary All over the world people are slowing down and reflecting All over the world people are looking at their neighbours in a new way

All over the world people are waking up to a new reality To how big we really are. To how little control we really have. To what really matters. To Love.

So we pray and we remember that Yes there is fear. But there does not have to be hate. Yes there is isolation. But there does not have to be loneliness.

Yes there is panic buying. But there does not have to be meanness. Yes there is sickness. But there does not have to be disease of the soul Yes there is even death.

But there can always be a rebirth of love. Wake to the choices you make as to how to live now. Today, breathe. Listen, behind the factory noises of your panic The birds are singing again

The sky is clearing, Spring is coming, And we are always encompassed by Love. Open the windows of your soul And though you may not be able

to touch across the empty square, Sing