Have no fear, little flock -- not even against the plague!

God's love never fails. Trust in Him and join in the rosary today at 4:00 p.m. EST.

A friend sent me an email early this morning with a link to an article from The Catholic Thing. Here's the bit that really struck me. The author, Robert Royal, describes a contact from a colleague about Archbishop Wilton Gregory's message to his flock about the coronavirus. The archbishop wrote that his "number one priority" is:

...to ensure the safety and health of all who attend our Masses, the children in our schools, and those we welcome through our outreach and services. 

Interesting, isn't it, for a shepherd of souls to call physical safety of his flock his "number one priority." Royal goes on:

...calling safety “our number one priority” has become a sign of covert materialism decadence. During a pandemic, safety should, of course, not be last. But we should be able to expect that our Catholic leaders will not speak of “our number one priority” as do the political heathens. 

Our modern medical systems can do a great deal, given long experience with infectious diseases, to minimize human suffering and death. 

The Church has long experience, too, millennia dealing with sin and redemption, life and death (even pandemics), this world and the world to come. One of the great fictional accounts of such experiences is Alessandro Manzoni’s The Betrothed, perhaps the greatest Catholic novel ever written, a kind of Catholic War and Peace. 

Words matter. Actions also – like public prayers, processions, penitence, reparation (a word from Fatima). 

Pope Francis did a great thing in making a pilgrimage to special places of prayer in Rome last week on behalf of all those suffering from the pandemic. He’s called upon people around the world to say a Rosary together this evening at 9 PM Rome time, 4 PM Eastern time (United States).

Let's all join in at 4:00 EST today in praying the rosary for the speedy end to our modern plague. My husband and I will end each decade with the prayer to St. Roch against plagues. And we will be adding those prayers every day as long as the coronavirus is impacting our poor, fallen world.

I'm doing some research on preventive strategies for dealing with the virus or what to do if you start feeling sick. I'll be posting that soon. Meanwhile, the absolutely best strategy is to follow Padre Pio's admonition to "pray, hope, and don't worry." The worst that can happen is that you get sick and die, but death is inevitable for all of us. And there is a kind of blessing in facing that horseman with courage and trust in God since the outcome always rests in His hands. After all, even if you get sick, you won't know whether you will recover or not. That is according to God's will. Don't you want to rest in His Divine Will which always means the best for you? As St. Ignatius tells us, we should desire only God's will and be indifferent to whether we are rich or poor, healthy or sick, honored or dishonored, or have a short life or long life. In the end, the only thing that matters is to know, love, and serve God so that we may be happy with Him in heaven.

So let us all be prudent in our behavior as we deal with this plague unleashed by the demons, but I surely don't want to give Lucifer the satisfaction of seeing me lose trust in God. Do you?

Remember the fable about the argument between the sun and the wind? They make a bet about who can get the man on the road to shed his coat. The wind goes first and blows up a storm trying to wrench the coat from the man's back. The man clings to his coat tighter and tighter bracing himself against the cold wind. Finally, the wind gives up in defeat and challenges the sun to do better. As the sun beats hotter and hotter, the man soon sheds his coat. Cold power and arrogant bluster against the heat of love.

Lucifer is doing all he can to stir up the winds of fear and panic, but Christ's love is shining down on us in the midst of this pandemic inviting us to trust in Him. And Our Lady, our blessed Mother, wraps us in the folds of her garment whenever we turn to her saying. "Am I not here, I who am your Mother?"

We have nothing to fear if we are God's friends in the state of grace. Nothing can harm us. Death is not the last word, but simply a door we pass through to reach our true home. Let us clothe ourselves in the wedding garment of grace so that we will be prepared at every minute to meet our bridegroom in that inevitable moment when he calls out, "Come, my beloved, enter into my rest."