Coronavirus as “Nature’s Response”
Many are questioning where the coronavirus pandemic came from. Was it caused by man? Was it created by someone developing a biological weapon? Was it a fluke of nature coming out of a “wet market” in China?
During the nearly universal shutdown, to control the spread of the virus, the Pope had an interesting interpretation of current events. In a recent interview with The Tablet magazine he made these comments:
“There is an expression in Spanish: ‘God always forgives, we forgive sometimes, but nature never forgives.’ We did not respond to the partial catastrophes. Who now speaks of the fires in Australia, or remembers that 18 months ago a boat could cross the North Pole because the glaciers had all melted? Who speaks now of the floods? I don’t know if these are the revenge of nature, but they are certainly nature’s responses…
“Every crisis contains both danger and opportunity: the opportunity to move out from the danger. Today I believe we have to slow down our rate of production and consumption (Laudato Si’, 191) and to learn to understand and contemplate the natural world. We need to reconnect with our real surroundings. This is the opportunity for conversion.
Austen Ivereigh, 08 April 2020, ‘Pope Francis says pandemic can be a ‘place of conversion’‘, The Tablet
Yes, I see early signs of an economy that is less liquid, more human. But let us not lose our memory once all this is past, let us not file it away and go back to where we were. This is the time to take the decisive step, to move from using and misusing nature to contemplating it. We have lost the contemplative dimension; we have to get it back at this time.”
He references his environmental encyclical in this response to a question and central to the encyclical are the following quotes that give a clue of what he was referring to by “contemplative”:
“On Sunday, our participation in the Eucharist has special importance. Sunday, like the Jewish Sabbath, is meant to be a day which heals our relationships with God, with ourselves, with others and with the world…We tend to demean contemplative rest as something unproductive and unnecessary, but this is to do away with the very thing which is most important about work: its meaning.”
“The law of weekly rest forbade work on the seventh day, ‘so that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your maidservant, and the stranger, may be refreshed’ (Ex 23:12). Rest opens our eyes to the larger picture and gives us renewed sensitivity to the rights of others. And so the day of rest, centered on the Eucharist, sheds it light on the whole week, and motivates us to greater concern for nature and the poor.”
Pope Francis, 25 May 2015, ‘Encyclical letter Laudato Si’ of the Holy Father Francis on Care for Our Common Home’, Page 237
He says we need to get it back, referring to the “contemplative dimension”, this he addresses in his upcoming Educational Alliance. He is calling leaders from all sections of society together in Rome, where the focus will be caring for the earth. We need to watch carefully how things play out after the coronavirus is under control. Let’s make sure we are not deceived by anything that comes out of that “Alliance”, appraising everything by the Word of God. Remember this:
“To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.”
Isaiah 8:20
For more information on the Coronavirus and it’s connection to the environment, watch this presentation by Doug Batchelor
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