[Jesus] also said to the crowds, “When you see [a] cloud rising in the west you say immediately that it is going to rain—and so it does; and when you notice that the wind is blowing from the south you say that it is going to be hot—and so it is. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky; why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” (Luke 12:54-56)
Interpreting the signs of the times is incumbent upon every Christian, not only those with authority or with particular charisms. Our understanding of what God is up to now, and what it portends for the future, is not infallible. But we are admonished to be discerning, and true discernment includes a deep dive into salvation history, and prayer.
Is God punishing the world now? My short answer is yes. But in order to help you understand how I come to that conclusion, I have to respond to a grave error in modern Christianity, namely, that because God is love, God does not punish. The constant teaching of the Church, based on Sacred Revelation, is that those who die in a state of unrepented rebellion against God get what they want, namely, an eternity apart from God, which we call hell. https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_P2O.HTM For a good book length treatment of the subject, read Will Many Be Saved? by Ralph Martin
My purpose here is not to address the issue of eternal punishment, but rather the issue of earthly punishment. I’d like to begin with the intestimable Trent Horn of Catholic Answers:
The Bible records God punishing people in this life for their actions through natural disasters. God rained fire and brimstone upon Sodom and Gomorrah because of their inhabitants’ depravity (Gen. 19:24-25) and he sent venomous snakes to afflict Israel when they became impatient and spoke against God in the desert (Num. 21:6). Some of these punishments include sending diseases to afflict people such as the plagues upon Egypt (Exod. 7:16-17) and even a plague upon Israel (2 Sam. 24:15).
And this isn’t something God only did in the Old Testament. St. Paul admonished the Corinthians who received the Eucharist while in a state of sin: “that is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died” (1 Cor. 11:30). St. Luke records how Ananias and Sapphira fell down and died after Peter confronted their dishonest behavior towards the communal collection (Acts 5:9-11).
Now, there is a question about what the biblical authors mean when they say God sent a plague or other disaster. It could be the case that God directly intervened in the natural order to bring such a calamity about or that he permitted a natural evil to unfold and simply chose not to stop it. Either way, the testimony of Scripture shows that we can’t say that God never causes sickness or death as a punishment for sinful behavior.
But that doesn’t mean illness or death are always a punishment for sinful behavior. A central theme of the book of Job was that he had done nothing wrong to incur the afflictions he endured (1:1). In fact, God became angry with Job’s friends for wrongly suggesting Job’s afflictions were punishments for sin (42:7). He tells Job (and the rest of us) that we are not in a position to judge why God allows some evils to occur (38:1-41). That’s because, as God said through the prophet Isaiah, “as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (55:9). https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/is-covid-19-a-punishment-from-god
Job doesn’t know why he is suffering, but the reader is privy to a conversation that takes place in heaven. God holds out Job as a model human being, and the devil says to God, “Sure, Job is good, but that’s only because you have blessed him so much. If he loses what he has, he will curse you.” God allowed Job’s faith to be tried, and as a result, his faith was purified and deepened.
The Book of Job rejects the simplistic thinking that if someone suffers, they must have done something evil to deserve it. Something similar is at play in the story of the man born blind in the Gospel of John. The disciples ask, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind.” (John 9:2) Jesus answers, “Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.” (v.3) Jesus means that the man was deprived of sight so that he could experience the miracle of having sight given to him by the Son of God.
Jesus has a different response when some disciples asked Him about the viral news story of the day, the murder of Galileans by Pilate.
“Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did! Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!” (Luke 13:2-5)
Jesus often warns that for people who do not repent and believe in him, a great punishment awaits them. “Amen, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.” (Matthew 10:15)
Is God’s punishment only reserved for the end of history, whether our personal history (at our death) or the end of the world? In Matthew 24 Jesus gives what is called the Olivet Discourse. He predicts the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. The disciples ask what will be the signs leading to His coming and the end of the age. He responds by saying there will be false messiahs, wars, famines, earthquakes, persecutions, hatred and betrayal, false prophets, an increase of evildoing, and the love of many growing cold.
To which future time period Jesus referred is much debated. The temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., but the world did not end. My own view is that of a partial preterist, which means that the events leading to the destruction of Jerusalem were a type of Jesus coming in judgment, prefiguring and sharing in his coming at the end of history. https://www.theopedia.com/preterism
How was Jerusalem destroyed? By Roman armies. Why did it happen? The secular historian would say that it was the Roman response to the insurrection of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The early Christians, based on the Lord’s prophetic words, understood that it was a consequence of the rejection of Jesus and the continued persecution of His disciples. They understood the spiritual cause. Interestingly, the Church in Jerusalem received a supernatural message to flee the city (The Flight to Pella) before it was destroyed.
In the first three chapters of the Book of Revelation, John relates messages of Jesus to seven churches in western Asia Minor. These messages are a mix of encouragement and warning. To the Church in Laodicea, Jesus says:
“I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, ‘I am rich and affluent and have no need of anything,’ and yet do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I advise you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich, and white garments to put on so that your shameful nakedness may not be exposed, and buy ointment to smear on your eyes so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and chastise. Be earnest, therefore, and repent. (Rev. 3:15-19)
When it comes to large-scale calamities, Christians throughout history have interpreted them as divine chastisement. This is especially true of plagues.
Saint Charles Borromeo in turn recalls that “among all the other corrections that his divine Majesty sends, the chastisement of pestilence is usually attributed to his hand in a more special way,” and he explains this principle with the example of David, the sinner king, to whom God gave the choice of either plague, war, or famine as a chastisement. David chose the plague with these words: “Melius est ut incidam in manus Domini, quam in manus hominum.” It is better that I fall into the hands of God than into the hands of men. Therefore, Saint Charles concludes, “the plague, along with war and famine, is attributed very especially to the hand of God” (Memoriale ai Milanesi di Carlo Borromeo, Giordano Editore, Milan 1965, p. 34). http://www.robertodemattei.it/en/2020/04/20/the-hand-of-god-and-the-hand-of-men/
At Fatima, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to three shepherd children in 1917, while WWI was still being waged. After showing the children a vision of hell, Mary said:
You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that He is about to punish the world for its crimes by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father.
To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, and various nations will be annihilated. In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world. In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved.
The Blessed Virgin Mary predicts the outbreak of WWII and says it will be a result of people continuing to offend God. On other occasions, Mary warns of regional chastisements, including the mass slaughter that took place in Rawanda (see Our Lady of Kibeho) and the destruction of a “beautiful city” in Poland (Diary of St. Faustina, 39).
Can chastisements be avoided or lessened? Yes. We have the famous example of Jonah’s prophecy that Ninevah would be destroyed. The people repented and averted the punishment that had been prepared for their sins. Many mystics have reported conversations with our Lord and our Lady in which they were told that punishments had been or could be avoided or lessened.
My reading of salvation history is that large-scale suffering often occurs when the sins of a society (or many societies) build up to such a point that the majority of people are on a downward moral and spiritual trajectory leading to hardening of hearts from which they will not be able to return. Unless something dramatic happens to shake things up, many souls will end up in hell. That is what would happen if people continued to be comfortable and prosperous while sinning more and more.
On occasion, I’m asked about the Great Flood. How could the deaths of almost everyone be the kind of course correction I describe? I think that if God does not intervene at that point, things would have become so corrupt that there would be no line from which the Messiah could come. By preserving a line for the Messiah, those killed in the Great Flood who did not personally and definitively reject God could be saved for eternity as the grace of Christ reaches back into history through His descent to the dead. (By the way, I interpret the Great Flood to have been an event that affected a large region, the entire earth from the perspective of the biblical writer).
Back in 2015, we had a gathering of priests. The presenter asked us to think of a time in salvation history that was similar to our own. This phrase came to my mind: “We are living in the days of Noah before the flood.”
In early April of this year, I began to question the wisdom of the near total lockdown to fight COVID-19. I did not doubt that the virus was more dangerous than the flu. But I thought the unintended consequences of a lockdown—loss of livelihoods, deaths of despair, other adverse mental health outcomes, widespread poverty, and a breakdown of social order—would greatly outweigh the benefits of the lockdown. I also believed that the spiritual harm of ceasing public Masses would be very serious. What was shocking to me was how leaders in government, church, and media seemed to pay so little attention to the consequences of an extended lockdown.
I don’t think the civil unrest we are experiencing now would have happened without the lockdown. The spark was the unjust killing of George Floyd, but the huge disruption of normal life which preceded it was the accelerant. While people were rightly upset when they learned of Floyd’s death, the resulting violence and destruction has only made things worse. The media has highlighted the peaceful nature of the protests. But it is hard to separate this from the manifestations of the deadly sins (wrath, greed, envy) that have accompanied the protests. Again, leadership at every level has failed us.
In my reading, COVID-19 is, in itself, a weak candidate for divine chastisement with an infection mortality rate of less than three out of one thousand. Many historical diseases have killed 30% or more of entire populations. Applying that death rate to the US population would mean 99 million.
Rather, the chastisement is, in the first place, the blinding of our leaders. After King Solomon died, his son Rehoboam ascended to the throne. The people pleaded with Rehoboam to lessen the heavy tax and servitude burden that Solomon has placed on them. The elders advised the young king to listen to the people. Rehoboam’s young friends gave the opposite advice, telling him to increase the burden on the people. He followed the advice of his young friends, and that led to the split of Israel, ten tribes forming the Northern Kingdom, with Rehoboam and his descendants reigning over Judah.
A secular historical analysis would say that Rehoboam made a grave error of judgment that had devastating consequences. But the Biblical author explains that these events were punishment for the sins of Solomon, who married many foreign wives and built shrines to false gods. (1 Kings 11:1-13)
Many years ago, I listened to a talk on angels by Peter Kreeft. He explained how the good angels are constantly active in protecting us and upholding the divine order. The fallen angels are constantly trying to separate us from God and sow chaos. He acknowledged that despite the good angels’ work, there is still evil in the world. But he said that if the good angels stopped what they were doing for a short time, the entire world would be like a Nazi concentration camp.
The image here is of an unseen spiritual battle that is waged, with the forces of chaos constantly threatening, only restrained by God and His agents. I would add that the Church (united with her head Jesus) is the principal agent upholding divine order against demonically influenced chaos.
I believe that the errors and sins of Church leaders are a big part of why we are experiencing the current chastisement. There was the horrendous sex abuse of minors and coverup as well as a corruption of the faith due to many bishops and priests embracing a collection of heresies known as Modernism. St. Pius X condemned these in an encyclical entitled Pascendi Dominici gregis. Traditionalist Catholics have argued that Vatican II was an irredeemably Modernist enterprise. While many of their arguments have merit, I do not fully subscribe to their point of view. Rather, I believe that Vatican II largely expressed ancient truths in new ways. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI provided the keys to interpreting the Council in continuity with the deposit of faith. But after the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, this “hermeneutic of continuity” has been largely abandoned.
And so what we have are actions and statements at the highest levels of Church leadership that propagate the following errors: no one goes to hell, all religions are positively willed by God, the biblical/traditional view of sex, marriage, procreation, and sexual identity are relative and can be safely ignored, and the primary task of the Church is to create a this-world Utopia through enlightened public policy.
At dinner last night, I was blessed to be in the company of another priest and several lay Catholics who are very well read in history. Someone mentioned that there have been many times of corruption in the Church. That is true. And yet I think the temporary triumph of Modernism is unique. Also unprecedented is the cessation of public Masses across the globe. This has greatly weakened the spiritual power which restrains the Evil One from sowing chaos.
What should you do? I don’t have a lot to add to what I have been preaching for the last eight years as your pastor. That is because I have always tried to preach the whole Gospel, in season and out of season. We are to love God with everything we got and to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are to live as true disciples of Jesus. We are in our second round of Discipleship Groups, and in a month or two we will be ready to make it widely available to those who wish to receive this formation in the Christian life, which explains in detail how to live the eight habits of a disciple: (1) Prayer, (2) Sacraments, (3) Fasting, (4) Study, (5) Virtues, (6) Friendship, (7) Generosity, and (8) Evangelization.
I have also urged you, many times, to pray the Rosary daily. Our Lady has urged us to do this. If you are not doing this, start today.
Finally, I urge you to consecrate yourself and your family to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I will say more about this shortly as we near these two feast days. And when I say consecrate, I don’t mean to merely recite some prayers, but to truly entrust yourself to Jesus and the Queen Mother. Perhaps we will live to see the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary foretold at Fatima.
