By Modesto P. Sa-onoy
Yesterday, I cited Bishop Marian Eleganti, auxiliary bishop in the Swiss Diocese of Chur, who said that he expected a miracle to stop the creeping coronavirus that has caused thousands of deaths, sickness, dislocations and disruptions of our daily lives without an end in sight.
Bishop Eleganti cited what two saints did when faced with plagues and epidemics – “they called for prayer, penance, repentance, as well as trust in God.” He mentioned St. Gregory the Great and St. Charles Borromeo and revealed what they did to stop the epidemics.
The Swiss bishop mentioned Italian historian Roberto de Mattei who wrote how St. Gregory faced the plague in the 6th century, the Black Death from 541 to 542.
Pope Gregory exhorted everyone “to raise their eyes to God, who permits such tremendous punishments in order to correct His children.” To placate the divine wrath, the Pope ordered a “seven-form litany,” that is, a procession of the entire Roman population, divided into seven corteges, according to sex, age and condition. The procession moved from the various Roman churches towards the Vatican Basilica, singing litanies along the way.
“The seven corteges moved through the buildings of ancient Rome, barefoot, at a slow pace, heads covered in ashes. While the multitude traversed the city, in sepulchral silence, the pestilence reached such a point of fury, that in the brief space of an hour, eighty people fell dead to the ground.”
Pope Gregory was not dismayed. He didn’t cease for a second in exhorting the people to continue praying and insisted that the picture of the Virgin painted by St. Luke and kept in Santa Maria Maggiore be brought to the front of the procession.
After the procession, Gregory saw at the top of the castle an angel, who, after drying his sword dripping with blood, put it back in its sheath as a sign that the punishment was over.”
The prayers and sacrificial procession called on God and He heard.
Contrast this with the reaction of the Catholic Church in Italy and many other dioceses in the world to the outbreak of the coronavirus to that of St. Charles Borromeo, who was the Cardinal Archbishop of Milan when a plague broke out in that city on August 11, 1576.
According to Italian Catholic journalist and historian Robert de Mattei, Cardinal Borromeo not only assisted those who fell sick, but also ordered public and private prayers. (Notably, he did not, like many in authority, flee the city.) He visited hospitals and led penitential processions, believing that the plague was a “scourge sent by Heaven” as a punishment for sins. When the magistrates who governed Milan objected to the public ceremonies, arguing that they would spread contagion, Borromeo convinced them that spiritual remedies, like those prescribed by St. Gregory the Great in 590, had stopped plagues in the past.
Borromeo led three general processions that October “to placate the wrath of God” and afterwards preached about how sins provoke God’s punishment. When survivors became too afraid to leave their homes, their archbishop had Masses and public prayers said at outdoor altars all over the city so that people could participate from the windows of their homes.
Mattei believes, as Borromeo believed, that the Milan plague of 1576 was “a chastisement, but also an opportunity for purification and conversion.”
“Charles Borromeo gathered his meditations in a Memorial, wherein, he writes among other things: ‘City of Milan, your greatness reached the heavens; your wealth extended to the confines of the universe world (…) Then, all of sudden, from Heaven comes the pestilence which is the Hand of God, and, all of a sudden, your pride was crushed’,” Mattei wrote.
“The Saint was convinced that everything was due to the great mercy of God,” Bishop Eleganti continued and quoted Borromeo, who wrote “[God] wounded and healed; He scourged and cured; He placed his hand on the rod of chastisement and offered the staff of support.”
Six thousand people died in the first two months of what has been called “St. Charles’ Plague” in 1576. As of last week, the death toll in Italy from the 2020 coronavirus is just over 1000 and the whole world around 5,000. The plague of 1576–1577 killed 50,000 in Venice alone, almost a third of the population.
Continued tomorrow.
