Is the Corona Virus A Punishment?

I originally published this blog entry in March when the pandemic first started to spread. It is a message I believe we need to hear again as infections are surging in our country and around the world.

Please stay well. Fr. De Lillio 

Ella, who just turned ten, asked her mother, “Mommy did God send the Corona virus to harm us?” Her mother responded,  “Why do you ask, Ella?”  “Because my friend Jessie said her teacher told her in class God is punishing us because we’re doing bad things?”

 Ella’s mom wisely responded, “Is that what you think, honey?” Ella answered, “Well last Sunday Father Mark said God is love and God loves everybody the same both the good and the bad. Ella paused. Then said, “If he loves everybody, the good and the bad, why hurt us with a stupid old virus?”

 Ella probably isn’t the only one these days thinking about this pandemic and wondering what role God plays. Let’s start with Father Mark’s Sunday homily where he said God is love.  Father Mark is pressing the right button. God loves us all because God is love and loves his children. God’s love pours over his creation when we’re good and when we’re bad.

 He reminds me of my grandmother who hugged me the same whether spiffy clean for  Sunday dinner or  sweaty dirty after a summer bike ride. To my grand mom, I was  simply and always her grandson.  It was as plain and simple for her as it is for God. I can always depend on her to give me that same bursting hug.

 And like my Grandmother’s love, I didn’t do anything to earn her love. It just flowed freely when she saw me. The same with God’s love. Certainly God prefers us to be good and obedient, but if we’re not, he doesn’t hold back his love or his hugs. So would God send us a deadly virus for doing bad things? I don’t think so.

But we do have the Corona virus and it is deadly. We live on a planet with many others, and catastrophes happen such as hurricanes spawning in the south Atlantic in July where land and people are often destroyed. Rivers rise in our Midwest during the heavy rainy season while tornadoes rumble through towns and country sides leaving paths of disasters and death. Yet God doesn’t do any of these things with the intention of teaching a lesson.

However, when calamities occur, God often uses the dismal results to teach a lesson.  He doesn’t do evil, but when evil strikes lessons sprout. Recently wildfires struck in Australia for weeks and even months. Australians were heroic in their efforts to save their native animals and bush, but they needed help 

Firefighters arrived from many nations, especially the United States responding  generously to save what they could.  It became a display of the goodness that pours from  hearts when desperate neighbors exhibit need. It told the watching world that we can love our neighbors when we want too.  Is that the message these fires left behind? Probably, but God didn’t start that fire.

We have so many courageous images rising up in these pandemic times. People are working overtime in nursing homes and hospitals to keep neighbors alive. Others check in on homebound neighbors to make certain they know someone cares about them.  High risk food shoppers order from a supermarket while volunteers carry orders  directly to their cars.

Jesus said clearly he didn’t come to condemn the world, but to save it. Jesus even saves us from ourselves by using his grace to turn evil into good. The famous Notre dame Cathedral burned, yet through the generosity and good will of many people, this sacred space will rise again.

To Ella and to the many others who wonder about plagues and other disasters, God doesn’t make them happen. God’s miracle is to bring out the goodness in us. God can turn the Corona virus into a blessing, because God’s blessings go out lavishly to all his children so they can carry his abundant love to others..