01-04-2021, 11:59 AM
These classic children’s stories warn us of the peril of buying into the big lie — a COVID lesson
These stories provide a lens that can help us interpret events that are happening right now. They are frighteningly prophetic.
These stories provide a lens that can help us interpret events that are happening right now. They are frighteningly prophetic.
By Pete Baklinski
December 24, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — This might be the most surprising article you will read about the psychological, and ultimately spiritual, warfare being waged against you and your loved ones every moment of every day in the name of keeping all of us “safe” from the coronavirus.
Here is what has happened so far. The coronavirus originated in China in the latter part of 2019. COVID-19 spread throughout the world, creating a worldwide crisis. Governments around the world reacted to the crisis to stop the spread. Government reactions included lockdowns, social distance orders, mask mandates, curfews, and a push to develop a vaccine, all in the name of keeping us “safe” from the virus.
But such safety comes with a price.
Rights and freedoms have been crushed. Churches have been closed. Worshiping God in public has been banned. Many have lost their jobs. Lockdowns are destroying businesses. Economies are in shambles. People walk around in masks with fear in their eyes. Fear is everywhere. Most are controlled by it. Many have come to the point mentally and emotionally where they are willing to do almost anything to secure their safety, to live in peace and freedom once again, to go back to the way things were just one short year ago.
This is exactly the place where people, who are scared into submission out of fear to preserve their lives, are most useful to those with plans to use the crisis as a golden opportunity for social engineering and the restructuring of society.
Well crafted messaging communicated to us by so-called experts in the fields of medicine and health that influences government policy and is reinforced by mainstream media is well on the way to achieving a number of goals that are becoming more and more apparent with each passing day.
But I am jumping ahead of myself. I want to relate a children’s story that I think rather brilliantly summarizes the situation we find ourselves in today. The story provides a lens that can help us interpret events that are happening right now. The story, especially the 1943 version retold by Walt Disney, is frighteningly prophetic.
Psychological warfare
The story of Chicken Little opens in a nice, cozy little farmyard, where there thrives a community of chickens protected from wild animals by an impenetrable fence. The community includes a rooster who is headman, chicken inspector, and supervisor of egg production. There are a host of other birds who make up the well rounded community, including the do-gooders; the gossipers; the intellectuals; the irresponsible; and last, but not least, Chicken Little, who is a “little shy on brains.”
The chickens are happy and contented, knowing they are protected by a big, strong fence.
But then, one day, along comes a fox who takes a culinary interest in the chickens. Seeing the fence, the locked door, and the farmer’s gun on a nearby porch, the fox turns to “psychology” to get what he wants — not just one bird, but them all.
From a book titled Psychology, the fox reads: “To influence the masses, aim first at the least intelligent.”
He then sets upon a plan to manipulate Chicken Little into believing that the sky is falling and all are doomed.
“If you tell ’em a lie, don’t tell a little one, tell a big one,” the fox reads from Psychology, a book that reads as if it was drawn from the pages of Hitler’s Mein Kampf or Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.
Grabbing a piece of a blue sign with a star painted on it, the fox throws it at Chicken Little accompanied by smoke, water, and loud noises that the fox has orchestrated for dramatic effect. The fox speaks to Chicken Little through the fence as the “voice of doom,” convincing him that the sky is falling and that he must run for his life. Chicken Little immediately races through the chicken pen, shouting to everyone who will listen that the sky is falling, pointing to the bump on his head to prove it.
The chickens are at first alarmed: “Oh, my goodness, how awful. What will we do? We’ll all be killed.”
When the rooster points out that it’s just a piece of wood that fell on Chicken Little, the fox is temporarily defeated. But, using his trusted book of Psychology, the fox begins to undermine the faith of the chickens in their leader, the rooster, by spreading falsehoods about him.
At the critical moment, the fox whispers through the fence to Chicken Little that the chickens will now listen to him and that Chicken Little was born to be their leader. Chicken Little promptly tells the chickens he’s going to save their lives by telling them what to do. The chickens, driven by fear after seeing the rooster hit on the head by a “piece of the sky,” beg Chicken Little to save them. All Chicken Little can tell them is what he heard whispered to him by the Fox: “Run to the cave!”
The chickens collectively burst through their protective fence and rush to the cave, following the carefully marked signposts that the fox has erected to point the way. The story ends with the fox eating all the chickens and paying tribute to Psychology for helping him to get what he wanted.
There are a number of important lessons to be drawn from this story:
I believe that the story of Chicken Little has much to teach us about the current situation we find ourselves in. There are many signs that we are being lied to, manipulated, and being moved to a predetermined end in the COVID-19 crisis. Who the controllers are and what their predetermined goal is are becoming more evident with each passing day.
Let’s go through the lessons we learned from the story of Chicken Little to see how they apply to the coronavirus crisis.
A faithful Catholic priest who is an exorcist recently told LifeSiteNews that he has discerned a diabolical component to the coronavirus crisis. Some of you may be skeptical of demonic influence in the world. It’s been said that the greatest trick Satan ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn’t exist.
The priest laid out what he believes is the strategy Satan is using to bring about the goal of preparing the world for the inevitable coming of the Antichrist, the lawless one, who, while being entirely opposed to God, will style himself the savior of the world and attempt to draw all men to himself (1 Thess. 5:2-3; 2 Thess. 2:4-12; 2 Jn. 7).
The priest laid out the plan this way:
The priest sees the coronavirus crisis and the global response to it as part of a “diabolic conspiracy” to prepare the way for the Antichrist. He sees that God ultimately is allowing these things to happen not only as a “chastisement” to bring people to their senses, but also as a time of “purification” to help people become detached from sin and to lead godly lives.
The priest’s warning that the consolidation of worldly powers and the control leveraged through the coronavirus crisis may be playing a part in the eventual coming of the Antichrist reminded me of a passage in the book of Revelation. In the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of the Apocalypse, we read about a future time when people will not be able to “buy or sell” unless they have a special “character” which is placed “in their right hand, or on their foreheads.”
Some governments have already floated the idea (here, here, and here for how it works) of an “immunity passport” that would allow people to shop, go to work, travel, and go to sporting and cultural events only if they have received a COVID-19 vaccine. In other words, the day may be approaching quickly where people will not be able to “buy or sell” unless they have received such a vaccine and have proof that they have received it. For now, such proof could be a written document or an app on your phone. Later, it could be a quantum dot dye system or an implanted chip that stores not only medical, but also financial information beneath one’s skin.
While many governments are not at this moment making COVID vaccines mandatory, some are certainly threatening that those who refuse to take it will not be able to engage in the public forum. The “choice” to take the vaccine is suddenly becoming “an offer one can’t refuse.”
It remains to be seen if there is anything nefarious behind the vaccines themselves and the global push to have the world’s population vaccinated. There are many qualified doctors and researchers along with other experts who are warning people not to take the vaccine for various reasons. These include the vaccines’ rushed development, their lack of normal testing, their largely experimental nature, their use of aborted fetal cell line either in production or testing, the high number of adverse reactions, and the standard medical doctrine that you don’t vaccinate people who aren’t at risk from a disease.
One Catholic bishop has suggested that mandating COVID vaccines connected in some way to abortion is part of Satan’s strategy to force the whole world to “collaborate” in abortion. “This is for me the last step of Satanism, that Satan and the world government — ultimately the Masonic world government — will oblige all, even the Church, to accept abortion in this way,” said Bishop Athanasius Schneider, auxiliary bishop of Astana in Kazakhstan, in an October interview.
The Catholic priest and exorcist mentioned above told LifeSiteNews that there is a “diabolic component” to mandating vaccines connected to abortion because it will make people who receive them a “physical walking offense” to God, which is “what the demons want us all to be, even if it’s not volitional on our part.”
When I was thinking about this priest’s words, it dawned on me that many of the COVID rules and protocols imposed on us by the authorities, such as mask mandates and social distancing protocols, make us physical walking offenses to God.
Mankind is created in the image and likeness of God. It is especially the face, the transparent medium of our rational soul, that reveals the divine spark that makes us different from every other creature. Heaven is described by St. Paul as a “face to face” encounter with God (1 Cor. 13:12). Masks cover the face. They obscure that part of us that especially reveals our divine origin. In the end, masks cover our true identity as children of God who are called to live not in fear, but in freedom.
Men and women are called to be in communion with one another and receive this call from the Trinitarian Communion of Persons. Jesus prays that we all “may be one” as he is in the Father and the Father is in him (Jn. 17:21). We are communal beings. We flourish when we are together. We decline when we are apart. In his book The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis describes hell as a place where its inhabitants are “getting further apart” from one another because of how much they despise and hate one another. For Lewis, hell is social distancing. Treating one another as potential virus-infected killers from whom we must keep our distance is a direct assault on our divine call to communion.
One final point I want to make about a diabolic component to the coronavirus crisis is Satan’s stroke of genius in using the crisis to close churches and deny the faithful access to the sacraments, something that atheists and communists have been striving to do for a long time. It is no coincidence that assaults on freedom of worship are a consequence of coronavirus measures. From Satan’s perspective, stopping Christian worship, stopping the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, stopping the faithful from being able to access the sacraments would be one of the first main objectives in his battle plan. And, unfortunately, weak and unfaithful shepherds played right into Satan’s hands, often going above and beyond what secular authorities mandated in lockdown measures. Thus far, the major lockdowns have happened around the two most important Christian feasts of the year, Easter and Christmas.
The Christian faith teaches that Jesus Christ will one day return. But, before he does, the Church will pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. There will be persecution. The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of the coming of a “religious deception” that will offer men an “apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth.” No one can tell if we are now beginning to live in such times, but, just as a mountain begins to rumble and smoke before the volcanic explosion, so too might many things happening today be interpreted as signs of things to come.
‘But he hasn’t got anything on’
I want to end with another classic children’s story and the important lesson it has to offer us in these times. Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes tells the story of a vain emperor exceedingly fond of clothes who is taken in by two swindlers.
One day, posing as weavers, the two swindlers offer the emperor the most magnificent clothes that have a wonderful way of becoming invisible to anyone who was unfit for his office or unusually stupid. The emperor falls for the trap, saying that such clothes would help him discover which men in his empire are unfit for their posts and help him tell the wise from the foolish.
The swindlers set up looms and begin their work. The emperor sends officials, and later goes himself, to examine their progress. All of them see that the looms are empty, but they pretend to see the “excellent pattern, the beautiful colors” so as to avoid being called out as fools and unfit for their offices. The weavers finally finish making the clothes and pretend to dress the emperor, preparing him for a parade in front of the entire kingdom.
“Everyone in the streets and the windows said, ‘Oh, how fine are the Emperor’s new clothes! Don’t they fit him to perfection? And see his long train!’ Nobody would confess that he couldn’t see anything, for that would prove him either unfit for his position, or a fool. No costume the Emperor had worn before was ever such a complete success.”
A child, governed by reason, common sense, and right judgment, finally exclaims: “But he hasn’t got anything on.”
It is at that moment that the citizens realize that they have been fooled.
It’s time for us to examine the evidence and to judge the situation we find ourselves in with right judgment. If the foxes of our day are telling us to run to the cave to be safe, we need to question everything and refuse to go along with their narrative if it does not correspond to reality. If the emperors of our day are telling us to go along with their schemes that in the end are contrary to plain sight, reason, and common sense, we’re the fools if we go along with it. In the end, only the truth will set us free. And it is in living according to truth that we live in freedom as children of God.
Here is what has happened so far. The coronavirus originated in China in the latter part of 2019. COVID-19 spread throughout the world, creating a worldwide crisis. Governments around the world reacted to the crisis to stop the spread. Government reactions included lockdowns, social distance orders, mask mandates, curfews, and a push to develop a vaccine, all in the name of keeping us “safe” from the virus.
But such safety comes with a price.
Rights and freedoms have been crushed. Churches have been closed. Worshiping God in public has been banned. Many have lost their jobs. Lockdowns are destroying businesses. Economies are in shambles. People walk around in masks with fear in their eyes. Fear is everywhere. Most are controlled by it. Many have come to the point mentally and emotionally where they are willing to do almost anything to secure their safety, to live in peace and freedom once again, to go back to the way things were just one short year ago.
This is exactly the place where people, who are scared into submission out of fear to preserve their lives, are most useful to those with plans to use the crisis as a golden opportunity for social engineering and the restructuring of society.
Well crafted messaging communicated to us by so-called experts in the fields of medicine and health that influences government policy and is reinforced by mainstream media is well on the way to achieving a number of goals that are becoming more and more apparent with each passing day.
But I am jumping ahead of myself. I want to relate a children’s story that I think rather brilliantly summarizes the situation we find ourselves in today. The story provides a lens that can help us interpret events that are happening right now. The story, especially the 1943 version retold by Walt Disney, is frighteningly prophetic.
Psychological warfare
The story of Chicken Little opens in a nice, cozy little farmyard, where there thrives a community of chickens protected from wild animals by an impenetrable fence. The community includes a rooster who is headman, chicken inspector, and supervisor of egg production. There are a host of other birds who make up the well rounded community, including the do-gooders; the gossipers; the intellectuals; the irresponsible; and last, but not least, Chicken Little, who is a “little shy on brains.”
The chickens are happy and contented, knowing they are protected by a big, strong fence.
But then, one day, along comes a fox who takes a culinary interest in the chickens. Seeing the fence, the locked door, and the farmer’s gun on a nearby porch, the fox turns to “psychology” to get what he wants — not just one bird, but them all.
From a book titled Psychology, the fox reads: “To influence the masses, aim first at the least intelligent.”
He then sets upon a plan to manipulate Chicken Little into believing that the sky is falling and all are doomed.
“If you tell ’em a lie, don’t tell a little one, tell a big one,” the fox reads from Psychology, a book that reads as if it was drawn from the pages of Hitler’s Mein Kampf or Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.
Grabbing a piece of a blue sign with a star painted on it, the fox throws it at Chicken Little accompanied by smoke, water, and loud noises that the fox has orchestrated for dramatic effect. The fox speaks to Chicken Little through the fence as the “voice of doom,” convincing him that the sky is falling and that he must run for his life. Chicken Little immediately races through the chicken pen, shouting to everyone who will listen that the sky is falling, pointing to the bump on his head to prove it.
The chickens are at first alarmed: “Oh, my goodness, how awful. What will we do? We’ll all be killed.”
When the rooster points out that it’s just a piece of wood that fell on Chicken Little, the fox is temporarily defeated. But, using his trusted book of Psychology, the fox begins to undermine the faith of the chickens in their leader, the rooster, by spreading falsehoods about him.
At the critical moment, the fox whispers through the fence to Chicken Little that the chickens will now listen to him and that Chicken Little was born to be their leader. Chicken Little promptly tells the chickens he’s going to save their lives by telling them what to do. The chickens, driven by fear after seeing the rooster hit on the head by a “piece of the sky,” beg Chicken Little to save them. All Chicken Little can tell them is what he heard whispered to him by the Fox: “Run to the cave!”
The chickens collectively burst through their protective fence and rush to the cave, following the carefully marked signposts that the fox has erected to point the way. The story ends with the fox eating all the chickens and paying tribute to Psychology for helping him to get what he wanted.
There are a number of important lessons to be drawn from this story:
- Creating or capitalizing on a crisis is the best way to move the masses toward a goal that has been predetermined by the controllers.
- Lies can control people, especially the ignorant and those who can’t think for themselves.
- “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
- Fear for one’s safety is the best way to motivate the masses to accept the controllers’ solution to the crisis and engage in actions that lead to the predetermined goal.
- Once the lie is bought by the masses, the solution proposed by the controllers is logical.
- There will always be obvious signs that the lies and fear-based narrative crafted by the controllers are contrary to reality, contradicting reason, common sense, and right judgment.
- The only way to escape arriving at the predetermined end is to act according to reason, common sense, and right judgment and not according to the narrative crafted by the controllers.
- The fox (the controller) wants to eat the chickens (predetermined goal). He manufactures a crisis (sky is falling) to move the chickens toward his goal.
- The lie that the sky is falling creates fear in the chickens that they will all die. This fear drives the chickens to submit to the control of the fox.
- The chickens come to believe the “big lie” that the sky is falling through the clever messaging of the fox and the persistence of Chicken Little.
- The chickens become willing to do anything to be kept safe from the sky falling on their heads.
- The solution of running to the cave for safety is, at first glance, a logical solution to the threat of the sky falling.
- There were numerous signs that the narrative created by the fox was false, such as the “piece of sky” really being a hunk of painted wood, such as the fact that the sky is not a material object that can fall, and such as the fact that if the Earth’s atmosphere were collapsing, running to a cave would not save anyone from the twofold doom of oxygen deprivation and sudden plummet in temperature to uninhabitable levels.
- Only the chickens who refused to run to the cave were actually the ones who, in the end, were safe.
I believe that the story of Chicken Little has much to teach us about the current situation we find ourselves in. There are many signs that we are being lied to, manipulated, and being moved to a predetermined end in the COVID-19 crisis. Who the controllers are and what their predetermined goal is are becoming more evident with each passing day.
Let’s go through the lessons we learned from the story of Chicken Little to see how they apply to the coronavirus crisis.
- When news first started to break about a new virus that was spreading like wildfire throughout the world, we were told that millions upon millions would die. Thus emerged the crisis.
- The crisis created fear in people around the world that they and their loved ones were in danger of becoming infected with the virus and could quickly and painfully die from it.
- Many people, watching mainstream media’s interpretation of the crisis, became utterly convinced of the reality of the crisis.
- The masses, driven by fear of contracting the virus and dying from it, were scared into submitting to government laws, created by newly seized powers, to keep people “safe.” Thus came the lockdowns, the mask mandates, the social distancing, the sanitizer, the vaccines.
- Many of the solutions provided, if it were true that a deadly virus was in the process of wiping out millions upon millions of the world’s inhabitants, appear at first glance to be logical.
- There are numerous signs, however, that the COVID narrative being put forward by governments around the world and being backed by mainstream media is simply not true. This point could be backed by thousands of pages of evidence. I will simply provide resources to real-world data, statements, and position papers by qualified and respected doctors and scientific studies that you can examine to ascertain for yourself that what you are being told by government and mainstream media about COVID-19 doesn’t reflect reality. If the information below is any indication that the COVID narrative put forward by government and mainstream media is not true, what this means is that the solutions to the crisis being offered by authorities may not in the end save you or anyone and may, in fact, lead to an unexpected and unpleasant result.
- COVID-19 is less dangerous than seasonal flu
- Professor of Medicine at Stanford University: COVID far ‘less dangerous’ for most than seasonal flu
- Pandemic? Only .02 of one percent of world’s entire population has died from COVID-19
- Johns Hopkins University academic: CDC data shows COVID hasn’t increased US death rate [watch here]
- California doctor: ‘99.8% of people get through this with little to no progressive or significant disease’
- Frontline doctors: Vast majority of young and healthy recover [watch here]
- Lockdowns don’t work
- 52,000 medical scientists and practitioners: Lockdowns produce devastating effects on short and long-term public health
- Scientific journal Nature: ‘No evidence’ of asymptomatic COVID-19 transmission in 10-million-people study
- The Price of panic: How the tyranny of experts turned a pandemic into a catastrophe
- Proof that quarantining the healthy does not work
- Why lockdown could cost more lives than it saves
- Frontline doctors say no to more lockdowns
- Masks offer little protection from virus
- Dr. Jim Meehan: An evidence-based scientific analysis of why masks are ineffective, unnecessary, and harmful
- Neurosurgeon: Face masks pose serious risks to the healthy
- Dr. Roger Hodkinson, MA, MB, FRCPC, FCAP, CEO and medical director of Western Medical Assessments: Masks are utterly useless, COVID rules are politics playing medicine
- Masks don’t stop COVID-19 spread, peer-reviewed study finds
- Physicians: ‘Masks don’t control viruses, they control you’
- Dr. Fauci claims masks don’t provide COVID protection, only help people ‘feel…better’
- Medical doctor lays out hazards of COVID-19 face masks
- New England Journal of Medicine: ‘Wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection’
- If it’s true that we’ve been lied to and manipulated, we must resist and oppose solutions that are intended to move us little by little toward the predetermined goal.
A faithful Catholic priest who is an exorcist recently told LifeSiteNews that he has discerned a diabolical component to the coronavirus crisis. Some of you may be skeptical of demonic influence in the world. It’s been said that the greatest trick Satan ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn’t exist.
The priest laid out what he believes is the strategy Satan is using to bring about the goal of preparing the world for the inevitable coming of the Antichrist, the lawless one, who, while being entirely opposed to God, will style himself the savior of the world and attempt to draw all men to himself (1 Thess. 5:2-3; 2 Thess. 2:4-12; 2 Jn. 7).
The priest laid out the plan this way:
- The crisis created by the coronavirus outbreak is being used by globalist financial elites to consolidate power and bring about control.
- The “great reset” agenda (here, here, and here) is ultimately a plan to bring everything under the control of the globalist financial elite. Satan has been “working towards creating a society where everybody is under control by means of the financial side of things.”
- A world controlled by the elites who run a unified economy is the “necessary precursor” for the Antichrist to come.
- When the Antichrist comes, he will rule the masses not via individual political governments, but via a unified global economy that will micromanage all things.
- COVID vaccination programs are part of a process of getting people to comply with this new world order. “This is why you have people like Bill Gates and the like talking about the necessity of having people's vaccination records connected to their bank records, and things of this sort, so that they can basically shut you off financially if you don't comply with what their dictates are.”
- The demons are using the current crisis to “drive and amplify fear” so that people will go along with the agenda.
- The Antichrist is not coming “anytime soon,” but the world is being prepared for his coming.
The priest sees the coronavirus crisis and the global response to it as part of a “diabolic conspiracy” to prepare the way for the Antichrist. He sees that God ultimately is allowing these things to happen not only as a “chastisement” to bring people to their senses, but also as a time of “purification” to help people become detached from sin and to lead godly lives.
The priest’s warning that the consolidation of worldly powers and the control leveraged through the coronavirus crisis may be playing a part in the eventual coming of the Antichrist reminded me of a passage in the book of Revelation. In the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of the Apocalypse, we read about a future time when people will not be able to “buy or sell” unless they have a special “character” which is placed “in their right hand, or on their foreheads.”
Some governments have already floated the idea (here, here, and here for how it works) of an “immunity passport” that would allow people to shop, go to work, travel, and go to sporting and cultural events only if they have received a COVID-19 vaccine. In other words, the day may be approaching quickly where people will not be able to “buy or sell” unless they have received such a vaccine and have proof that they have received it. For now, such proof could be a written document or an app on your phone. Later, it could be a quantum dot dye system or an implanted chip that stores not only medical, but also financial information beneath one’s skin.
While many governments are not at this moment making COVID vaccines mandatory, some are certainly threatening that those who refuse to take it will not be able to engage in the public forum. The “choice” to take the vaccine is suddenly becoming “an offer one can’t refuse.”
It remains to be seen if there is anything nefarious behind the vaccines themselves and the global push to have the world’s population vaccinated. There are many qualified doctors and researchers along with other experts who are warning people not to take the vaccine for various reasons. These include the vaccines’ rushed development, their lack of normal testing, their largely experimental nature, their use of aborted fetal cell line either in production or testing, the high number of adverse reactions, and the standard medical doctrine that you don’t vaccinate people who aren’t at risk from a disease.
One Catholic bishop has suggested that mandating COVID vaccines connected in some way to abortion is part of Satan’s strategy to force the whole world to “collaborate” in abortion. “This is for me the last step of Satanism, that Satan and the world government — ultimately the Masonic world government — will oblige all, even the Church, to accept abortion in this way,” said Bishop Athanasius Schneider, auxiliary bishop of Astana in Kazakhstan, in an October interview.
The Catholic priest and exorcist mentioned above told LifeSiteNews that there is a “diabolic component” to mandating vaccines connected to abortion because it will make people who receive them a “physical walking offense” to God, which is “what the demons want us all to be, even if it’s not volitional on our part.”
When I was thinking about this priest’s words, it dawned on me that many of the COVID rules and protocols imposed on us by the authorities, such as mask mandates and social distancing protocols, make us physical walking offenses to God.
Mankind is created in the image and likeness of God. It is especially the face, the transparent medium of our rational soul, that reveals the divine spark that makes us different from every other creature. Heaven is described by St. Paul as a “face to face” encounter with God (1 Cor. 13:12). Masks cover the face. They obscure that part of us that especially reveals our divine origin. In the end, masks cover our true identity as children of God who are called to live not in fear, but in freedom.
Men and women are called to be in communion with one another and receive this call from the Trinitarian Communion of Persons. Jesus prays that we all “may be one” as he is in the Father and the Father is in him (Jn. 17:21). We are communal beings. We flourish when we are together. We decline when we are apart. In his book The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis describes hell as a place where its inhabitants are “getting further apart” from one another because of how much they despise and hate one another. For Lewis, hell is social distancing. Treating one another as potential virus-infected killers from whom we must keep our distance is a direct assault on our divine call to communion.
One final point I want to make about a diabolic component to the coronavirus crisis is Satan’s stroke of genius in using the crisis to close churches and deny the faithful access to the sacraments, something that atheists and communists have been striving to do for a long time. It is no coincidence that assaults on freedom of worship are a consequence of coronavirus measures. From Satan’s perspective, stopping Christian worship, stopping the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, stopping the faithful from being able to access the sacraments would be one of the first main objectives in his battle plan. And, unfortunately, weak and unfaithful shepherds played right into Satan’s hands, often going above and beyond what secular authorities mandated in lockdown measures. Thus far, the major lockdowns have happened around the two most important Christian feasts of the year, Easter and Christmas.
The Christian faith teaches that Jesus Christ will one day return. But, before he does, the Church will pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. There will be persecution. The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of the coming of a “religious deception” that will offer men an “apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth.” No one can tell if we are now beginning to live in such times, but, just as a mountain begins to rumble and smoke before the volcanic explosion, so too might many things happening today be interpreted as signs of things to come.
‘But he hasn’t got anything on’
I want to end with another classic children’s story and the important lesson it has to offer us in these times. Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes tells the story of a vain emperor exceedingly fond of clothes who is taken in by two swindlers.
One day, posing as weavers, the two swindlers offer the emperor the most magnificent clothes that have a wonderful way of becoming invisible to anyone who was unfit for his office or unusually stupid. The emperor falls for the trap, saying that such clothes would help him discover which men in his empire are unfit for their posts and help him tell the wise from the foolish.
The swindlers set up looms and begin their work. The emperor sends officials, and later goes himself, to examine their progress. All of them see that the looms are empty, but they pretend to see the “excellent pattern, the beautiful colors” so as to avoid being called out as fools and unfit for their offices. The weavers finally finish making the clothes and pretend to dress the emperor, preparing him for a parade in front of the entire kingdom.
“Everyone in the streets and the windows said, ‘Oh, how fine are the Emperor’s new clothes! Don’t they fit him to perfection? And see his long train!’ Nobody would confess that he couldn’t see anything, for that would prove him either unfit for his position, or a fool. No costume the Emperor had worn before was ever such a complete success.”
A child, governed by reason, common sense, and right judgment, finally exclaims: “But he hasn’t got anything on.”
It is at that moment that the citizens realize that they have been fooled.
It’s time for us to examine the evidence and to judge the situation we find ourselves in with right judgment. If the foxes of our day are telling us to run to the cave to be safe, we need to question everything and refuse to go along with their narrative if it does not correspond to reality. If the emperors of our day are telling us to go along with their schemes that in the end are contrary to plain sight, reason, and common sense, we’re the fools if we go along with it. In the end, only the truth will set us free. And it is in living according to truth that we live in freedom as children of God.