What would life be like years ago if their leaders reacted to a natural catastrophe as they do today?
To day is the feast of St. Scholastica. In the sixth century she prayed that God would prevent her brother, St. Benedict, from leaving her house to return home. A great storm then struck up, preventing her brother from returning that night.
If society then functioned as they do today, the president would declare the tempest a “stormdemic.” People would not be allowed to venture outside so as to avoid any such future storms. Many would lose their jobs, and small businesses would be forced to close as a result. People would not be able to visit their loved ones in nursing homes or hospitals. The populace would be allowed to go to liquor stores and food stores, but prohibited or nearly prohibited from going to church.
The churches themselves would offer little resistance to the government’s edicts, and sometimes even give their enthusiastic praise of it.
Overall, the emotional and economic toll on the people and loss of spirit would be a greater disaster than the stormdemic itself.
Then the government would force everyone to build a 75-foot lightning rod on each of their houses. It would disregard the dangers of putting one up, as well as the efficacy of the lightning rod itself, which would be hastily designed and tested. More than one lightning rod might have to be built for each house, since there are different types of storms.
Thus with the cooperation of all institutions in society, people would be taught to live only to protect their own physical wellbeing and relegate the spiritual life to a nearly non-existent status. The most pious of believers would begin to pay more heed to the governor and their doctors than to their priests and spiritual leaders. Rosary beads would be replaced with the daily listening of shock-news bulletins. They would hold life death, and sniff at eternal life.
Thus the nation would come under tighter control of the government, private initiative and new businesses would be stifled, and the people would be better trained to jump at every perceived danger explained to them by the powers that be.
What would the true saints and heroes think of this?
