I'm going to oversimplify, but the Catechism says children shall provide their parents with the necessities of life in old age. That has been replaced with 401(k)s & retirement homes, while college takes its cut. Now the Virus has wreaked havoc with retirement homes and 401(k)s.

Fr. McNabb: Like the highest divine creations, the family is simple in structure, but manifold in function. Indeed to the modern complexity of mind the simplicity of family seems to fit it only for destruction.

Wouldn't it be ironic if, in the end, the Virus simply exposes the virtue of the local and the family...the local butcher and farmer, the family as educator and caregiver for the aged, the walk in the park as entertainment....it's all right there and so darn obvious.

Everyone talks about the return to "normal," which means mass food, mass entertainment, mass consumerism. I talk to people longing to get back to big box stores and movie theaters. Where is the longing for real normal? Is it too late in the game to hope for a better normal?

Chesterton: from its first days, the family had to fight against wild monsters, "and so it is now fighting against these wild machines. It only managed to survive then, and it will only survive now, by a strong internal sanctity; a tacit oath deeper than that of the the city"