As punishment for their idolatrous worship of the Golden Calf, God sent a plague among the Israelites (c.f. Ex 32:30-35). Serving as a bookend to this event, St. John tells us that the fourth rider of the Apocalypse brings with him plague “by means of the beasts of the earth” to punish mankind. And between these two instances, Scripture is replete with many cases in which mankind suffers a plague in punishment for sin. The point is that it is a common means that God uses in order to punish wayward mankind and, we ought not be surprised that in our age of decadence that we are once again witnessing the rise of a new plague.
At the outset it must be admitted that the notion that anything that happens is associated with Divine retribution is hardly ever discussed. It is usually embarrassingly glossed over so that only those “fire and brimstone preachers” animated with a punitive view of God that speak of it. Nevertheless true Christians must see it and call it what it is.
Calling it what it is
It is helpful first to examine why we are so hesitant to call something like the Coronavirus a tool of Divine punishment. This reticence is rooted in a grave misunderstanding of punishment in general and God’s punishment in particular. For us, punishment is always viewed as an evil, a lack of some good that becomes a penal act inflicted on us when someone in authority is fed up. For God punishment is only a relative evil deprivation of some good.
For men, good comes in three forms—external goods, the good of the body and the good of the soul—that form a hierarchy in which a lesser good may be sacrificed for a higher good. The evil of punishment then is always relative because it contains a medicinal value. A man may give up his money (external good) in order to feed his body (a good of the body). That same man may later fast and deprive himself of food so as to grow in virtue (a good of the soul). Whenever God punishes then he will allow the deprivation of some lower good for the good of the soul.
Here again we bump into a profound conflict with the spirit of the world. All of this only makes sense if you believe in the hierarchy of the manifold goods of man such that every punishment has a specific meaning. It is never inflicted haphazardly or indiscriminately but always with some good in mind. Justice and mercy are never separated. The good includes not only a repayment of the debt to justice, but also contributes, when willingly accepted, to the healing of the person.
For each sin not only offends God, but also warps our souls in some way by turning us away from what we were made to be. Each time we sin, we do so by abusing some good, by taking pleasure in something the wrong way. To fix the damage that is done, we have to submit to the deprivation of some pleasure that would result from the correct use of some good. By accepting punishment as a means of repaying that stolen pleasure, it actually heals us as well.
In short if we do not call it what it is, then the only other option is to conclude that it is completely meaningless. If plagues like the Coronavirus are not punishment then they are just accidental occurrences without any real meaning. This ultimately makes life itself meaningless and thus suffering becomes an absolute, rather than a relative, evil. By not calling it a punishment we are depriving the world of its meaning and it becomes in a very real sense useless suffering.
Admittedly we are also reluctant to call it a punishment because it feels like we are being judgmental. And this is the unforgivable sin of our age. But again it is Christ who judges the living and the dead that is being judgmental. And His judgment is not definitive but instead a call to repentance and healing, a call to peace and joy. His judgment is that “you are going to wrong way, turn around now because you are headed into an abyss.” Or, using His own words, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mt 10:28). If no one echoes that call, then many souls will be lost, including those whom He has called to speak His truth.
What It Means
We should be slow to say how the punishment applies to each individual man, but quick to point out how it applies to mankind as a whole. It seems that the meaning of the Coronavirus as a punishment for all of mankind is relatively clear. For Rome, the Coronavirus appears to be a Divine Judgment upon the sin of the idolatrous attachment to Pachamama. They must receive their deprivation of the Eucharist and offer it in reparation for the sin of idolatry. Setting that unique situation aside, the Coronavirus also offers an opportunity of reparation for our treatment of the most vulnerable among us.
The full effect of the virus is still unknown, but what is clear is that it is particularly deadly for the most vulnerable among us. In this way, the Coronavirus is not much different than the sins of abortion and euthanasia which attack those same people. It is because of the most vulnerable that all of the rest of us must now suffer. This suffering may be as simple as remaining in isolation for a fortnight or as devastating as losing a fortune. The point is that we are being made to make sacrifices in order to keep those same people we want to throw away safe. All of us can accept those sufferings and offer them in reparation for those grave sins.
In a Twitter post a couple of days ago, Conservative pundit Ann Coulter said that Americans were being manipulated by stories of the deaths in Italy. She made a point to say that the average age of the victims was 81. In essence she was saying “you shouldn’t be scared because it is just a bunch of old people dying.” Now most people wouldn’t so callously say that, but many people are thinking along the same lines. We shouldn’t fear because it only attacks the vulnerable. This survival of the fittest mentality is exactly why we need to Coronavirus right now—as an opportunity to make reparation for so savagely treating the very ones we should be protecting as mere useless beings. Fear not the one who gives you the Coronavirus, but instead fear the one who can destroy both body and soul.