The Covid-19 pandemic is already the main cause for concern worldwide. At the time of writing these lines it has already spread to 162 countries, in many of which the chain of infections is just beginning. It is difficult to venture, therefore, when it will subside and lose strength, but everything seems to indicate that it is going to be a long process: we are talking months. Today we cannot yet calibrate the dimension of the consequences that it will leave, which will be of an economic, social and political nature, apart, of course, from the emotional consequences that it will imprint on all of us, and especially on those who have already lost or will lose loved ones.
Even now, when there are still so many questions in the air, it is important to try read this situation from faith, from a Christian perspective. Faith should illuminate all kinds of circumstances, the happiest and saddest, the usual and the unexpected, those that comfort us and those that distress us.
And, from a Christian-faith perspective, we can surely point to at least two readings of the current crisis (there would be, undoubtedly, many more, that we will be able to ponder with time).
First: the pandemic reminds us, in all starkness, that the human condition is fragile, regardless of country, language or skin color. That is not banal. In an era marked by polarization between ideological extremes, by the resurgence of a certain tribal spirit in the world, by political proposals that invite us to build walls and resurrect the ghost of xenophobia, the current pandemic calls us to see each other as the big family that we are: united, we could say, in fragility. The coronavirus does not see races, nor social strata, nor ideological positions: it only sees people. Perhaps a positive consequence of everything we are experiencing could be that we may learn to relativize our small ideological wars, to then recover a more healthy and realistic sense of who we are, as a great human community, as the great family of the daughters and sons of God.
This past weekend, celebrating the third Sunday of Lent, we were reading the story of the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. It is the story of the meeting between two basic needs, since both Jesus and the woman are thirsty: he thirsts for water; she thirsts for water and for meaning in her life. By sharing without hesitation their fragility, their needy condition, Jesus and the Samaritan woman are able to overcome the divisions that the culture and the political and religious conflicts of their time had created for them. They end up ignoring those divisions. It doesn’t matter that he is a Jew and she is a Samaritan. The essential thing is that they are two needy people who can help each other. In this sense, a pandemic that does not respect borders or knows about flags can serve us as a healthy warning: what we have is beautiful and very fragile. Let us not ruin it by inventing artificial divisions between us.
The second reading—looking at the crisis from a faith-perspective— is that the coronavirus pushes us to stand in solidarity with the most vulnerable, the elderly and the sick, the way Jesus did. There is undoubtedly a sort of moral dimension to this pandemic: if I am a healthy young man of twenty, the Covid-19 does not threaten me much more than an ordinary flu. Does that mean that I can dispense with all prudence and go on with my normal life? No: because if I get it, I can then spread it to someone (an older adult or a sick person), for whom the infection will be lethal.
Fortunately, with the decisive response that the vast majority of countries are giving to the present crisis, we are all saying something very important: that we do not accept the famous culture of discard that Pope Francis has denounced so often. The fact that the most affected are “non-productive” people—the elderly and the sick—has not led anyone to minimize the problem. Here is a reason for pride and hope: perhaps the moral fiber of humanity was not as diluted as we could have thought. We are concerned about our elderly and our sick, and that is why we are all taking unprecedented measures, in the midst of this unprecedented situation.
Perhaps we Will come out of this present storm as a better society: a bit more fraternal, a bit more prone to solidarity. From a faith-perspective, this would be very good news.
Even now, when there are still so many questions in the air, it is important to try read this situation from faith, from a Christian perspective. Faith should illuminate all kinds of circumstances, the happiest and saddest, the usual and the unexpected, those that comfort us and those that distress us.
And, from a Christian-faith perspective, we can surely point to at least two readings of the current crisis (there would be, undoubtedly, many more, that we will be able to ponder with time).
First: the pandemic reminds us, in all starkness, that the human condition is fragile, regardless of country, language or skin color. That is not banal. In an era marked by polarization between ideological extremes, by the resurgence of a certain tribal spirit in the world, by political proposals that invite us to build walls and resurrect the ghost of xenophobia, the current pandemic calls us to see each other as the big family that we are: united, we could say, in fragility. The coronavirus does not see races, nor social strata, nor ideological positions: it only sees people. Perhaps a positive consequence of everything we are experiencing could be that we may learn to relativize our small ideological wars, to then recover a more healthy and realistic sense of who we are, as a great human community, as the great family of the daughters and sons of God.
This past weekend, celebrating the third Sunday of Lent, we were reading the story of the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. It is the story of the meeting between two basic needs, since both Jesus and the woman are thirsty: he thirsts for water; she thirsts for water and for meaning in her life. By sharing without hesitation their fragility, their needy condition, Jesus and the Samaritan woman are able to overcome the divisions that the culture and the political and religious conflicts of their time had created for them. They end up ignoring those divisions. It doesn’t matter that he is a Jew and she is a Samaritan. The essential thing is that they are two needy people who can help each other. In this sense, a pandemic that does not respect borders or knows about flags can serve us as a healthy warning: what we have is beautiful and very fragile. Let us not ruin it by inventing artificial divisions between us.
The second reading—looking at the crisis from a faith-perspective— is that the coronavirus pushes us to stand in solidarity with the most vulnerable, the elderly and the sick, the way Jesus did. There is undoubtedly a sort of moral dimension to this pandemic: if I am a healthy young man of twenty, the Covid-19 does not threaten me much more than an ordinary flu. Does that mean that I can dispense with all prudence and go on with my normal life? No: because if I get it, I can then spread it to someone (an older adult or a sick person), for whom the infection will be lethal.
Fortunately, with the decisive response that the vast majority of countries are giving to the present crisis, we are all saying something very important: that we do not accept the famous culture of discard that Pope Francis has denounced so often. The fact that the most affected are “non-productive” people—the elderly and the sick—has not led anyone to minimize the problem. Here is a reason for pride and hope: perhaps the moral fiber of humanity was not as diluted as we could have thought. We are concerned about our elderly and our sick, and that is why we are all taking unprecedented measures, in the midst of this unprecedented situation.
Perhaps we Will come out of this present storm as a better society: a bit more fraternal, a bit more prone to solidarity. From a faith-perspective, this would be very good news.
