A Sign Of The Times
Our Churches our currently closed due to the Corona Virus Pandemic. One such church cordoned off the pews with police caution tape. It looked like a crime scene.
Let's start by looking at scripture:
Numbers 12
1 And Mary and Aaron spoke against Moses, because of his wife the Ethiopian, 2 And they said: Hath the Lord spoken by Moses only? Hath he not also spoken to us in like manner? And when the Lord heard this, 3 (For Moses was a man exceeding meek above all men that dwelt upon earth) 4 Immediately he spoke to him, and to Aaron and Mary: Come out you three only to the tabernacle of the covenant. And when they were come out, 5 The Lord came down in a pillar of the cloud, and stood in the entry of the tabernacle calling to Aaron and Mary. And when they were come, 6 He said to them: Hear my words: if there be among you a prophet of the Lord, I will appear to him in a vision, or I will speak to him in a dream. 7 But it is not so with my servant Moses who is most faithful in all my house: 8 For I speak to him mouth to mouth: and plainly, and not by riddles and figures doth he see the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak ill of my servant Moses? 9 And being angry with them he went away: 10 The cloud also that was over the tabernacle departed: and behold Mary appeared white as snow with a leprosy. And when Aaron had looked on her, and saw her all covered with leprosy, 11 He said to Moses: I beseech thee, my lord, lay not upon us this sin, which we have foolishly committed: 12 Let her not be as one dead, and as an abortive that is cast forth from the mother’s womb. Lo, now one half of her flesh is consumed with the leprosy. 13 And Moses cried to the Lord, saying O God, I beseech thee heal her. 14 And the Lord answered him: If her father had spitten upon her face, ought she not to have been ashamed for seven days at least? Let her be separated seven days without the camp, and afterwards she shall be called again. 15 Mary therefore was put out of the camp seven days: and the people moved not from that place until Mary was called again. 16 (13-1) And the people marched from Haseroth, and pitched their tents in the desert of Pharan.
Here are my musings about how I think Numbers 12 is relevant to the current crisis today.
Miriam and Aaron committed a sin by disrespecting their brother, Moses. This angered God whereby he punished her by inflicting her with a disease. Is the Corona virus a punishment from God? Bishop Athanasius Schneider seems to think so. He proposes that the Corona virus is a result of us disrespecting God. He mentions the Pachamama worship at the Vatican and Communion in the hand as examples. Now in Aaron's case he repented and asked Moses to forgive them. Moses then asked God to heal his sister. God did so, but first required her to be quarantined for 7 days. We are currently under quarantine for our afflictions. This quarantine includes not having access to the Church and It's sacraments.
This is serious and requires that we return to giving God our full respect due to Him.
From Bishop Schneider's interview about the Corona virus:
For more than fifty years, he observed, the Eucharistic presence of Jesus Christ has been “trivialized” and even “desecrated” through the practice of Communion in the hand and the introduction of “protestantizing elements” in the Roman liturgy. “Now,” he said, “the Lord has intervened and deprived almost all the faithful of assisting at Holy Mass and sacramentally receiving Holy Communion. The innocent and the guilty are enduring this tribulation together, since in the mystery of the Church all are mutually united as members.”
To make restitution to God, he said the Pope and bishops ought urgently to carry out a public act of reparation in Rome “for sins against the Holy Eucharist” once the coronavirus pandemic is brought under control. He also said the Pope should issue concrete norms inviting the entire Church to “turn toward the Lord” in the liturgy and “forbid the practice of Communion in the hand.”
“The Church,” he said, “cannot continue unpunished to treat the Holy of Holies in the little sacred Host in such a minimalistic and unsafe manner.”
