On April 15, 2019, Monday of Holy Week, Notre-Dame Cathedral was ablaze until the early hours of Tuesday morning.

This year, because of coronavirus, few Christians are allowed to go to church during Holy Week. Similarly, our Jewish friends are not allowed to attend synagogue for Passover.

Hmm. Two years of disrupted Holy Weeks.

Never mind, because, even during lockdown, abortions are allowed to go ahead and off-licences (liquor stores) are still open.

As Brother Alexis Bugnolo put it at From Rome:

The real reason behind the Corona Stunt is something much more than simple control. It has a purpose. Here in Italy, most every activity is prohibited other than those who work in necessary sectors of the economy …

At the supermarket, no one is afraid that in exchanging coins or bills, that they will catch Coronavirus. But we are told that the Catholic Mass is a possible source of contagion, so distribution of the Eucharist must be suspended?

Mammon is O.K. to handle? But the Eucharist is dangerous and unhealthy?

Something does not add up.

On Palm Sunday, April 5, he posted that Bill Gates recommends that churches remain closed for 18 months (video at link). Emphases in the original:

Ominously, at 17:40 in this Video, Bill Gates implies that the Catholic Religion will remain outlawed until all can be certified to have received a vaccine, if even then! …

I know there has always been speculation about Bill Gates’ name having the ASCII value of 666, but his comments above are more ridiculous, they are diabolic!

Melinda Gates is a Roman Catholic, and Bill and Melinda have raised all their children as Catholics. However, I some how think there is something big missing in their lives, if they think like this: God.

This is what St Peter’s Square looked like yesterday:

It’s not only Catholics who cannot go to worship with fellow believers but all Christians and Jews.

Those of us living through Holy Week 2020 will remember it for the rest of our lives. The unthinkable — closing houses of worship — happened across the world in a trice.

In such circumstances, we should persevere in our prayers and meditations this week:

We have many people to pray for — those affected by coronavirus around the world.

I am grateful that President Trump called for prayer yesterday:

On Saturday, I posted the Gospel readings for this year and a brief sermonette on Pontius Pilate, who arrived in Jerusalem the same time that Jesus did.

One of my readers, Scoot, responded with a poem about Palm Sunday, which sums up the two entries into Jerusalem perfectly:

The poem “The Conquerors” by Harry Kemp is apropos, given the processions of Jesus and Pilate.

Begging your pardon in advance, here it is quoted below:

I SAW the Conquerors riding by
— With trampling feet of horse and men:
Empire on empire like the tide
— Flooded the world and ebbed again;

A thousand banners caught the sun,
— And cities smoked along the plain,
And laden down with silk and gold
— And heaped-up pillage groaned the wain.

I saw the Conquerors riding by,
— Splashing through loathsome floods of war —
The Crescent leaning o’er its hosts,
— And the barbaric scimitar, —

And continents of moving spears,
— And storms of arrows in the sky,
And all the instruments sought out
— By cunning men that men may die!

I saw the Conquerors riding by
— With cruel lips and faces wan:
Musing on kingdoms sacked and burned
— There rode the Mongol Ghengis Khan;

And Alexander, like a god,
— Who sought to weld the world in one;
And Caesar with his laurel wreath;
— And like a thing from Hell the Hun;

And, leading like a star the van,
— Heedless of upstretched arm and groan,
Inscrutable Napoleon went
— Dreaming of empire, and alone. . . .

Then all they perished from the earth
— As fleeting shadows from a glass,
And, conquering down the centuries,
— Came Christ, the Swordless, on an ass!

On his website, Scoot also posted a prayer for these dismal days:

Prayer in Times of Pestilence

Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord, an answer to our hearty supplications; and, Thy wrath being appeased, turn away from us this pestilence, that the hearts of men may know that these scourges proceed from Thine anger, and cease by Thy mercy.

Amen

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is currently in hospital with coronavirus. He has been running a fever for several days. His fiancée, Carrie Symonds, also has coronavirus and with a fever. She is expecting their child. Please include them in your prayers. We need Boris as Prime Minister.

These past posts of mine might be helpful in our private meditations during Holy Week:

Monday of Holy Week

Readings for Monday of Holy Week

The righteous anger of Jesus towards the money changers

Jesus and the money changers

Tuesday of Holy Week

Readings for Tuesday of Holy Week

Contemplating the withered fig tree (2017)

The High Priests plot against Jesus

Epistle for Tuesday of Holy Week — 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 (2016)

Spy Wednesday

Readings for Wednesday of Holy Week — Spy Wednesday

Judas offers his services

More on Spy Wednesday

More on Judas

Holy Week — the story thus far

Gospel reading for Wednesday of Holy Week — John 13:21-32 (2016)

Wednesday of Holy Week — Spy Wednesday (2017, Henry and MacArthur on Judas: bad hombre)

None of us knows what long-term effects coronavirus will have on our civil liberties around the world.

What follows is an American perspective from MorningStar Ministries, but let’s not forget that the Magna Carta was signed in England in 1215 (emphases in purple mine):

Our Founders feared the tyranny of the mob as much as they feared the tyranny of a king. The same crowd that welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem declaring “Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” were crying “Crucify Him!” just five days later. The Founders were devoted to establishing a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but also one that could ride out the wild swings of public opinion. These swings can create a social turbulence that tears a nation apart.

Democracies are where the majority rules. Republics are where the people vote for representatives that rule on their behalf. The representatives ideally will not just try to please public opinion, which can so wildly swing from one extreme to the opposite extreme, but rather do what is best for the whole country. This is why our Founders formed a constitutional republic, not a democracy as many wrongly presume …

All three branches of government have been prone to infringe on the authority given to the other branches, as well as the authority given to the states and the people. The military calls this “mission creep”—when a commander starts adding to their specific assignment. When this happens, very often the original assignment gets muddled and sometimes forgotten. This has happened in our Federal Government. It has taken on many purposes that are beyond its constitutional authority.

To remedy this, we must recover the fact that The Constitution was written to assign specific authority to the Federal Government and forever limit it to what was specifically given to it in order to preserve the authority of the states and the people. Therefore, the assignment of any purpose to the Federal Government not specifically named in The Constitution is a violation of The Constitution. A main purpose of The Constitution was to limit the authority of the Federal Government in order to keep it from becoming what it has now become …

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.  –Thomas Jefferson

We are in a serious situation at the moment, no matter where we are in the world.

Please pray this week. We have no excuse not to do so.