Scourge of coronavirus caught many by surprise
Was it cockiness, or arrogance, that made some of us slower than others in accepting the apocalyptic ramifications of COVID-19, more chillingly known as the coronavirus?
Perhaps it was a bit of both.
We simply weren’t conditioned to believe something as fearsome as a worldwide scourge could ever gain a foothold here in the land of milk and honey.
The hovels of Bangladesh? Sure. We’ve all witnessed images of that faraway misery on our TV screens. Though it was horrible, it was always someone else’s story, not ours.
It was like watching Mother (now Saint) Teresa embracing lepers, orphans and AIDS-stricken invalids in the wretched squalor of Calcutta; though our concern was real, it was always detached.
Calcutta, after all, is a long way from Boston, so, really, what did it have to do with us?
Our detachment was understandable. How do you relate to something you’ve never experienced, even if you know it’s real?
If you’re familiar with your Bible you know how God punished Pharaoh for refusing to free the Israelites by sending 10 plagues to Egypt: blood, boils, frogs, locusts — it was pretty mean stuff, but that was a long, long time ago.
Then there was the polio epidemic of the 1950s when kids were told to stay away from swimming pools; if you remember that, you’re no kid today.
No, when it comes to something like this COVID19 menace, we, as a nation, are so inexperienced that it’s been easy to lapse into denial, incapable of believing this could be happening to us.
There’s a wonderful scene in “Good Will Hunting” where Robin Williams’ character, a psychologist who’s been widowed, tells his young patient, played by Matt Damon, that he doesn’t regret the bad times because they’ll “wake you up to the good stuff you weren’t paying attention to.”
Maybe that’s us this morning.
Did you ever think you’d see the day when the archbishop of Boston would urge his flock to stay away from church and watch a Mass on TV, as Sean Patrick O’Malley did, reinforcing the need to avoid social contact?
In times of crisis, isn’t church the place many of us turn to first?
As Abe Lincoln told his secretary at the height of the Civil War, “Many times I have been driven upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.”
This is indeed a new and frightening experience for most Americans.
Hurricanes? Floods? Nor’easters? We can handle them.
As the late Msgr. John Dillon Day of Hyde Park lore reassuringly told those who came to him with burdens, “The snow always melts,” using the monstrous Blizzard of ’78 as a great example.
In other words, this, too, shall pass.
May it also be so of COVID-19.
Even erstwhile cynics are praying that now because there’s just no room for doubting anymore.