Allocution from Father Daniel Couture to the faithful of Canada - March 24, 2020

"We must abide by God's will in public calamities, such as war, pestilence, famine, and all the scourges of divine vengeance. We must do the same when misfortune comes upon us personally and upon our own. The great secret to achieving this is to look at all things with the eyes of faith, to adore the judgments of the Most High with a contrite and humbled heart, and whatever the scourges that strike us, to convince ourselves that Providence, infinitely wise and paternal, would not resign itself to sending them or allowing them, if they were not in its hands the instruments of renewal and salvation for peoples or for souls. In this way she leads to heaven, by the way of suffering, a crowd of people who would have been lost following another road. How many sinners who, called to God by the severe way of affliction, renounce their former iniquities and die in the feelings of true repentance! How many Christians who will one day occupy a glorious place in heaven, and who, without this salutary trial, would have groaned eternally in the flames of hell! What we call scourge and punishment is often a great grace, a shining test of mercy. Let us accustom ourselves to consider all things only by these great views of faith, and nothing that happens in this world will scandalize us, nothing will alter the peace of our soul and its trusting submission to Providence."