Procession of the Blessed Sacrament in Palayamkottai
Covid – 19 or commonly known as Coronavirus is spreading across the globe with unseen velocity and ferocity. It is forcing even the superpowers to stumble. It has sent half of the world’s population into ‘self-isolation’ – in an attempt to curb the spread. Health authorities and government are at loss to ‘flatten the curve’. While bio-tech firms and scientists have bent on and bent down towards this microbe in an endeavour to discover its remedy. Even the best scientists say that a vaccine is at least a year to 18 months away. Experts agree there’s a long way to go yet.
But we simple Catholics know very well that it is not a time to look down but look up. The vaccine - perhaps the instrumental causality is yet to be discovered, and we will be grateful to those who will discover, but the principal agent is God and it is our duty to turn towards Him. Unless the Lord keeps the city, he watches in vain that protects it. It is so obvious, but much forgotten as many self-evident truths are these days. It is why, we at this humble mission decided to apply the same remedy that was always successful in the past: the procession of the Blessed Sacrament and the invocation of the help of St. Sebastian. A simple lady told me at the very outset of this outbreak – Intercede St. Sebastian! This is how it is done always with great success. Her faith was truly great.
True knowledge is through the causes. If one neglects this, disaster awaits him. And it is so with this epidemic as well. We must acknowledge that Covid-19 is nothing but a sign of Divine chastisement (for our own good as God does not want the death of the sinner but that he converts). It is our simple and devout prayer that He graciously turn away the epidemic of plague that afflicts us and this will cease only when ‘He is moved to mercy’ (Roman Ritual).
Fr. Therasian
