There is a saying attributed to St. Augustine: “A Christian is an Alleluia from head to toe” – whether it is accurate or not I don’t know, but it does express well the notion that each Christian must be permeated by supernatural optimism. From Easter Sunday onwards everything has “worked out for the best” for Christians, just as St Paul said it would when he wrote: “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). Simply every apparent tragedy in the history of the Church keeps turning out to have been a blessing in disguise. Recently in the readings of Mass we have read of the mob martyrdom of St Stephen, which of course forced the very first expansion of the Church beyond the confines of Jerusalem: “And on that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles” (Act 8:1). Furthermore, if St Catherine of Siena is to be believed, it was the prayers of the dying Stephen which would lead later to the dramatic conversion of the arrogant Saul who witnessed and approved of the first Christian martyr’s death. And on it goes for the coming centuries: from martyrs come new Christians (as Tertullian famously observed in 197 AD: “The blood of the martyrs is the seedbed of the Church”); from heresy comes clarification of doctrine; from persecution comes the purification of Christians, from Christian hostages come missionaries, and from barbarian invasions come new fields of evangelisation.
This same spirit of invincible optimism should also inform our attitude to the coronavirus epidemic which has swept the world bringing death, isolation and financial chaos in its wake. We must be convinced – without turning a blind eye to the real suffering it has caused – that from the coronavirus much good can come, both directly through creative innovations it inspires in the life of civil society and the Church, and indirectly through bringing about a re-assessment of our priorities and a deeper conversion towards God in turn.