Thoughts on COVID-19:  reasons and response

The following article is from a friend of Archpriest Victor Potapov of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Washington DC:

I watch what is happening and I increasingly understand that mankind urgently needed such a shake-up!

Think - how we have lived our lives for last decades? Coronavirus will make you rethink your whole life! Mankind will live differently after the victory of the virus!

Nature and our Lord are tired of our contemptuous attitude towards our health and the environment! We 've stopped being human! Hubris overtook our minds and we began to feel that we are the masters of the world! But the tiny virus quickly put us in place!

The virus does not spare neither the wealthy nor the politicians, making it clear that they cannot escape from it on their private jets nor can they buy health for money!

And as I thought recently: "We lost the ability to live as families and so the disease shut us up in our homes so we could learn to live as a family once again."

We stopped respecting our elderly people, so we got this disease to remember how vulnerable they are.

We stopped appreciating health workers and got the disease to understand that they are irreplaceable.

We stopped respecting teachers so the disease closed schools so parents could appreciate how hard it is to teach.

We spent our free time in shopping malls and the disease closed them so that we realized that happiness was not in material things.

We spent a lot of time on our looks and comparing ourselves to others, so the disease hid our faces with masks to make us realize that beauty is not skin deep.

This disease takes a great deal away from us, but at the same time gives us an opportunity to grow in understanding of what is most important in our lives!

We were given a disease tailored to our needs!

May God help us to humble ourselves so that humility will give us wisdom.