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April 09, 2020

For Christian believers, what does this pandemic mean?

By Rev. Nicanor Austriaco, O.P. ’20G

A student asked me recently: What does this COVID-19 pandemic mean?

For my nonbeliever friends, this question is unintelligible, and non-sensical even. For them, it is all about viral mutation rates and viral natural reservoirs and viral spread. The pandemic is just the numbers: There is a low probability that a virus will jump from another species to ours, and once it does, it will spread until it is stopped.

We are just unlucky that we are living to see those numbers realized in our lifetimes. And until it is stopped, the virus will kill. That is what the pandemic means. Albert Camus would agree!

But for believers, especially for Christian believers, this question is salient because of our conviction that there is a providential God who has revealed that He loves and cares for us. Therefore, my student’s question can be put another way: Why did God send us/allow/permit this COVID-19 pandemic which is killing so many people and terrorizing so many more?

In this post, I would like to share a couple of thoughts from my experience as a priest who is called to walk with souls who are suffering.

To begin, I think that we have to distinguish the pandemic affecting the community and the respiratory illness that affects the single patient.

As a hospital chaplain at New York Cornell Presbyterian in New York City years ago, I would often be asked my student’s question, but by patients struggling with cancer or stroke or heart attack. Why did God send/allow/permit this illness to afflict me?

Many believed that God was punishing them in some way. But Jesus ruled this option out. When asked if a blind man was blind because of his sin or his parents’ sins, Jesus replied, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:3).

In light of this, I tell my patients that I do not know why they as individuals are suffering from disease or illness. But I tell them that I hope that they will be able, one day, to see how God has displayed His power in their lives, even through this time of pain and anguish.

I would say the same to the individual COVID-19 patient. I do not know why you are sick. But I hope that you will see God’s glory in your life bringing good out of this suffering.

Turning to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, things are different. There are numerous stories in both the Old Testament and the New Testament that reveal that there is theological meaning behind plagues and pestilence and pandemic.

There are three possibilities. The pandemic could be a divine blessing, a divine punishment, or a divine test.

I think that very few people today would see this viral pandemic as a blessing. How could the exponential increases in global deaths and illness be a blessing? How could the overflowing hospitals and exhausted and broken health care professionals be a blessing? How could the economic devastation experienced by all, especially by the poor and the vulnerable and the marginalized, be a blessing?

It is difficult to see all of this as a blessing. And yet, it would not surprise me if God will reveal the blessings that He can realize in and through the devastating tragedy of human suffering and death. In His time.

Could this pandemic be a punishment? There are many in the West who recoil from such a suggestion. However, both Testaments clearly indicate that God our Father can lovingly chastise His sons and daughters through plague and pestilence.

More recently, the Mother of God spoke about a divine chastisement when she appeared at Fatima, Portugal, just over a century ago. So it is not unreasonable to understand the pandemic in this way.

Why would God chastise His people? He does this to correct us so that we may flourish more fully and more joyfully and move lovingly. It is a sign of a Father’s love.

Finally, I think that it is reasonable to see this pandemic as also a test. Every cross is a test. It is a call to fidelity. It is a call to love more, especially to love God and neighbor more, even when it is difficult and stressful and anxiety-ridden.

So how should we respond to this pandemic when we realize that it is both punishment and test, with the hope that we may one day see it as a blessing?

The Lenten answer is a tried and true approach: Prayer, Penance, and Almsgiving. We should take the time in our quarantines and our lockdowns to pray a little more. Praying with Christ.

We should embrace our quarantines and our lockdowns and the little and not so little pains that come with them as a penance. Redemptive in Christ.

And we should seek out small and not so small ways to serve those around us who may be struggling because they see no more meaning in a time of pandemic. Loving like Christ.

Father Nic is a professor of biology and of theology at Providence College. He wrote this reflection from the Philippines, where he is under lockdown during the pandemic.

To address the critical needs of students who have been impacted by the ongoing coronavirus public health crisis, PC has started to raise funds for Emergency Student Support through The Fund for Providence College.