An insightful letter about the coronavirus shared by Fr. Victor Potapov of St. John's ROCOR Cathedral in Washington, D.C. 

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

Just think - how have we lived our lives during the last decades? The coronavirus will make you rethink your whole life!  Mankind will live differently after the triumph 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 our place!

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

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

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

We stopped appreciating medical workers, and we got the disease that we might understand how irreplaceable they are.  

We stopped respecting teachers, and the disease closed the schools, so that parents could experience just how hard it is to teach. 

We spent our free time in shopping malls, and the disease closed them, so that we might realize that happiness is not in material things. 

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

This disease takes a great deal away from us, but at the same time, it 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. 

SOURCE: holycross.org