Of dengue and other plagues

Like oil prices, dengue is on the rise in this country. With more than two thousand people afflicted, the fatalities have hit an alarming number. Cebu is among the high-incidence areas, the reason why the Cebu City council declared recently a state of calamity. Now there are efforts from many sectors to control the spread of this plague.

For indeed, dengue is a plague. It is no different from the plagues God sent to Egypt in the days of Moses to free the Israelites. Is the dengue infestation in the Philippines God's way of reminding us to mend our ways? Perhaps it is. For dengue thrives on dirt - both in the soul and in the soil - and there's plenty of dirt among us.

When the soul is unclean, callous and grossly hedonistic, it keeps itself far from the protective arms of God. The Bible records several accounts when God poured out his wrath upon those who had turned their backs on him and had become bestially licentious. Jesus himself spoke of this when he warned the people of Chorazin, Bethzaida, and Capernaum for not heeding his words and changing their evil ways. "You will be thrown down to the place of the dead!" he said of them. Jerusalem too had its share of Jesus' warning. "From now on your temple will be left empty for you will no longer see me until the time when you will say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord".

For the clean of hearts, however, God is the stronghold and safe refuge. Under his protection one need not "fear the terror of the right, nor the arrows that fly by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the night" Clearly, God is on the side of the man who walks in the divine light and does the will of his heavenly Father.

Ironically, however, a good and clean life is not a shield against calamities and sufferings. For the vine must be pruned that it might bear fruit, and the seed must first decompose before it can metamorphose into a stalwart tree. God is our father, and like our human father, he sometimes chastises his children to keep them on the right path. In Hebrew, these admonition appears: "My son, pay attention when the Lord corrects you and do not be discouraged when he punishes you. For the Lord corrects those he loves and chastises everyone he accepts as a son".

As we reflect on these lines, we are tempted to believe that dengue and the many plagues our country has been heir to, are God's way of disciplining us to keep us from going astray. Endless tribal and political conflicts, insurgency, scheming politicians, corrupt bureaucrats, low productivity, hunger and diseases - when is the end of all these? Yet we might as well asked, "When is the end of our hardness of hearts?"

God must have loved the Filipinos so much because he made so many of them depressed, deprived, and shockingly poor. Go, sell all that you have and follow me, Jesus advised the young man who asked how he could gain heaven. And when that young man turned away sadly, Jesus acidly commented about how easier it was for a camel to go through a needle hole but you know the rest!

But just because God loves the poor so much does not mean we should love to be poor. No matter how you look at it, poverty, whether physical or spiritual, is antithesis to the good life. And Christianity is the good life. It is a life of joy because joy is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps, because of this more than three hundred lines in the Bible enjoin people to be happy and only a few tell them to be sad.

Be cheerful, always cheerful. It is for those to be sad who do not consider themselves sons of God. This from Opus Dei saint Josemaria Escriva. And this comes from Jesus' mouth: "I tell you not to worry about your life: What are we to eat? Or about your body: What are to wear? Look at the crows: They neither sow nor reap; they have no storehouses and no barns; yet God feeds them. How much more important are you than birds!"

What to make of dengue and other plagues? These could be the shadows of God's hands extended to us caressingly, to paraphrase G.K. Chesternoon. Or they could simply be God's withdrawal of his safety stronghold because we have so deeply offended him.