Pope Francis: the world coronavirus pandemic is not God's judgment

The world coronavirus pandemic is not God's judgment of humanity, but God's appeal to people to judge what is most important to them and to decide to act accordingly from now on, said Pope Francis.

Addressing God, the pope said that “it is not the moment of your judgment, but of our judgment: a time to choose what matters and what passes, a time to separate what is necessary from what is not. It is a time to get our lives back together with you, Lord and others. "

Pope Francis offered his meditation on the significance of the COVID-19 pandemic and its implications for humanity on March 27 before raising a monstrance with the Blessed Sacrament and giving an extraordinary "urbi et orbi" blessing (to the city and the world ).

Popes usually impart their "urbi et orbi" blessing only immediately after their election and at Christmas and Easter.

Pope Francis opened the service - in an empty and rain-soaked square of San Pietro - praying that the "almighty and merciful God" would see how people suffer and give them comfort. He asked to take care of the sick and dying, health workers exhausted from the care of the sick and political leaders who have the burden of making decisions to protect their people.

The service included reading the story of Mark's Gospel about Jesus calming the stormy sea.

"We invite Jesus into the boats of our lives," said the pope. "We hand over our fears to him so he can conquer them."

Like the disciples on the stormy Sea of ​​Galilee, he said: "we will experience that, with him on board, there will be no shipwreck, because this is the strength of God: to turn everything that happens to us to good, even bad things".

The Gospel passage began, "When evening came", and the pope said that with the pandemic, his illness and his death, and with the blockages and closings of schools and workplaces, it seemed that "for weeks now it's evening. "

“A thick darkness has gathered in our squares, in our streets and in our cities; it has taken control of our lives, filling everything with deafening silence and a distressing void that blocks everything as it passes, "said the pope. “We feel it in the air, we notice it in people's gestures, their looks give them.

"We find ourselves scared and lost," he said. "Like the disciples of the Gospel, we were caught off guard by an unexpected and turbulent storm."

However, the pandemic storm made it clear to most people that "we are on the same boat, all fragile and disoriented," said the pope. And it showed how each person has a contribution to make, at least in comforting each other.

"We are all on this boat," he said.

The pandemic, the pope said, revealed "our vulnerability and discovers those false and superfluous certainties around which we have built our daily programs, our projects, our habits and priorities".

In the midst of the storm, Francis said, God is calling people to faith, which is not only believing that God exists, but turns to him and trusts him.

It's time to decide to live differently, live better, love more and take care of others, he said, and each community is full of people who can be models of behavior - individuals “who, although fearful, have reacted by giving their lives. "

Francis said that the Holy Spirit can use the pandemic to "redeem, enhance and demonstrate how our lives are intertwined and supported by ordinary people - often forgotten - who do not appear in newspaper and magazine headlines", but serve others and create possible life during the pandemic.

The pope listed "doctors, nurses, supermarket employees, cleaners, caregivers, transportation providers, law enforcement and volunteers, volunteers, priests, religious, men and women and so many others who understood that no one reaches the salvation alone ”.

"How many people exercise patience and offer hope every day, taking care not to sow panic but a shared responsibility," he said. And "how many fathers, mothers, grandparents and teachers show our children, with small daily gestures, how to face and face a crisis by adjusting their routines, looking up and encouraging prayer".

"Those who pray, offer and intercede for the good of all," he said. "Prayer and silent service: these are our victorious weapons."

In the boat, when the disciples beg Jesus to do something, Jesus replies: “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith? "

"Lord, your word affects us tonight and affects us, all of us," said the Pope. “In this world that you love most of us, we have gone on at breakneck speed, feeling powerful and capable of doing anything.

“Greedy for profit, we let ourselves be taken by things and be attracted by haste. We did not stop at your blame for us, we were not shaken awake by wars or injustice all over the world, nor did we listen to the cry of the poor or of our sick planet, "said Pope Francis.

"We continued regardless, thinking that we would remain healthy in a world that was sick," he said. "Now that we are in a stormy sea, we implore you:" Wake up, Lord! "

The Lord asks people to "put into practice that solidarity and hope that can give strength, support and meaning to these hours in which everything seems to be based," said the pope.

"The Lord wakes up to awaken and revive our Easter faith," he said. “We have an anchor: with his cross we have been saved. We have a helm: with his cross we have been redeemed. We have hope: with his cross we have been healed and embraced so that nothing and nobody can separate us from his redeeming love ".

Pope Francis said to people who looked around the world that he would "entrust all of you to the Lord, through the intercession of Mary, the health of the people and the star of the stormy sea".

"May God's blessing come down on you like a consoling hug," he said. "Lord, may you bless the world, give health to our bodies and comfort our hearts. You ask us not to be afraid. Yet our faith is weak and we are afraid. But you, Lord, will not leave us at the mercy of the storm. "

Presenting the formal blessing, Cardinal Angelo Comastri, archpriest of St. Peter's Basilica, announced that he will include a plenary indulgence "in the form established by the church" to all those who watch on television or on the Internet or listen to the radio.

An indulgence is a remission of the temporal punishment that a person is due for sins that have been forgiven. Catholics who follow the pope's blessing could receive indulgence if they had "a spirit detached from sin", promised to go to confession and receive the Eucharist as soon as possible and said a prayer for the pope's intentions