God’s Providence in the Pandemic. Why does he allow this?

Today’s Gospel is about the end times. Luke 17:26-37: ‘As it was in Noah’s day, so will it also be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating and drinking, marrying wives and husbands, right up to the day Noah went into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. It will be the same as it was in Lot’s day: people were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but the day Lot left Sodom, God rained fire and brimstone from heaven and it destroyed them all. It will be the same when the day comes for the Son of Man to be revealed. ‘When that day comes, anyone on the housetop, with his possessions in the house, must not come down to collect them, nor must anyone in the fields turn back either. Remember Lot’s wife. I have heard some people say that we have to get ready for a long and cold winter. That its going to be tough. Many people are going to die. That we have no assurance of getting a real effective vaccine. Some say its going to be several more years. So hunker down, and get ready. What should our attitude be in this time? How do we see God’s providence with all these numbers, these deaths? During the winter of 1666, Brother Lawrence, a Carmelite Monk in Lorraine, France, upon seeing a tree stripped of its leaves and considering that within a little time the leaves would be renewed and after that the flowers and fruit appear, received a high view of the Providence and Power of God which has never since been effaced from his soul. Somehow, we must see this challenge as an occasion for making us better. Music: Mozart, Adagio in C major, K. 356 - Guitar Arrangement - Bert Alink. Thumbnail: Photo taken at the Manoir de Beaujeu in Coteau du Lac, Quebec (Eric Nicolai)