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Homily for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time
https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_412homily6.26.2024ordinarytime13.html

Deacon Doug McManaman

I’d like to focus on one point from this gospel reading, specifically the incident involving the woman who for twelve years was afflicted with hemorrhages: “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured”, she said to herself, and she did just that and was cured. Jesus said to her: “Your faith has saved you”. 

This was not a faith in dogmatic statements, or an intellectual assent to certain theological propositions or dogmas. It was belief that this man could heal her, a faith that all things are possible with him. But what is particularly interesting is that Jesus felt power (Gk: dunamin: ability) had gone out from him. This means he became weaker; he was depleted to a certain extent. In other words, her healing was at Jesus’ expense. He had to become less for her to become more. This is a fundamental law or pattern of healing. If others are to become more through us, we will have to become less. And that is why this depletion, this weakening for the sake of healing the other will achieve its fullness on Good Friday, when Christ dies completely depleted and utterly abandoned: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me”. This is the mystery of our redemption: Jesus, who is God, is abandoned by God. God the Son experiences complete abandonment by God the Father, and the fruit of this abandonment is the healing of all humanity, past, present and future, that is, the redemption of the human race; the forgiveness of sins: “…unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit” (Jn 12, 24). 

There are so many images and instances of this law all around us. Think of a candle: it provides light and warmth, but it can only do so when it is lit, and when lit, the candle begins to burn, to melt and deplete, becoming smaller and smaller. The heat of the candle slowly destroys it. If the candle were to decide to preserve itself at all costs, to maintain itself, it would always look new, tall, handsome and wholesome, like the new Easter candle, but it would never give off light and warmth. 

Think of a woman who carries a child for nine months and gives birth; if she does this enough times, it becomes more and more difficult for her to maintain a youthful figure. After a while, she is too busy raising her children for her to worry about her looks, at least the way she looked as a young woman. Again, to bring life to another has a cost to the self.

The vocation of teacher is also a call to bring healing and life to one’s students, but teaching is highly stressful, so much so that many people leave the profession. It’s hard for people on the outside to understand that, but every teacher knows the stress, and sufferings, the hard knocks that are a daily part of their lives. But if a teacher were to organize her own life in a way that minimizes or eliminates that suffering–which I have seen often enough over the course of my career–, she would ultimately end up not having done a great deal of good for others, like a candle that refuses to burn. And of course, it is the same with nurses and caregivers.

It is very natural for us to try to organize our lives in order to eliminate suffering, difficulties, stress, things that weaken and deplete us, and many take this road, but the fruit of this is a life that gives off very little light and warmth. Unfortunately, there are spiritualities in the Church that put this forth as a principal goal, namely, to achieve a state of continual peace of mind, and to use “peace of mind” as a criterion for determining what course of action to take–”If a course of action will not bring you peace, then it is not the will of God for you”. But that of course flies in the face of everything we know about Christ from Scripture, who said “anyone who wishes to be a follower of mine, let him take up his cross and follow me”, or, do not think I have come to bring peace, but a sword, or, when he said to Peter: “…when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go” (Jn 21, 18), or, blessed are those who are persecuted, hated, ridiculed, on my account, rejoice and be glad; or, do not take the road that is smooth, wide and easy, the road that many take, the road that leads to perdition, rather, take the narrow way that few people are attracted to. 

And so, we need not be afraid of suffering, difficulties, and the stress that slowly depletes us, because these are the signs that we share in the life and death of Christ and that our life is truly life giving. At the end of our lives, we will look back at those sufferings, disappointments, and stresses and assure ourselves that if we had to do it all again, we’d change nothing. Our only regret will be that we had put too many limits on how deeply we were willing to share in Christ’s way of the cross. 

https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_409shepherdsgoodandbad.html

Homily for the 4th Sunday of Easter
Deacon D. McManaman

Before the resurrection, Peter denies Christ three times and hides; after the resurrection, Peter is filled with the Holy Spirit and speaks with great courage. In Acts, chapter 4, he faces the Sanhedrin, the assembly of rulers, elders and scribes and proclaims the risen Christ, completely indifferent to the sufferings that will follow. What Peter said to the rulers was direct and he offended them, but his bold proclamation before his arrest led to the conversion of thousands. That is the true face of the Church. In the gospel of John, Jesus says: 

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away – and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep.

Not every shepherd in the history of the Church was willing to put his life on the line for the good of the sheep; we need not be scandalized by this. I am reminded of the Office of Readings, specifically the readings from the 24th and 25th week in Ordinary time, which typically occurs in the fall. Every day for two weeks straight, the second reading is taken from St. Augustine’s Sermon 46, entitled On Pastors. Whenever I read this, I always think to myself that it must be a very difficult two weeks for some bishops, because every day Augustine goes after those shepherds who are primarily out for themselves, who are indifferent to the poor and the suffering and who tailor their preaching so as not to upset the wealthy–and in this way fail in their prophetic mission. 

On the Friday of that week, he says: 

But what sort of shepherds are they who for fear of giving offense not only fail to prepare the sheep for the temptations that threaten, but even promise them worldly happiness? God himself made no such promise to this world. On the contrary, God foretold hardship upon hardship in this world until the end of time. And you want the Christian to be exempt from these troubles? Precisely because he is a Christian, he is destined to suffer more in this world. … You, Shepherd, seek what is yours and not what is Christ’s, you disregard what the Apostle says…You say instead: “If you live a holy life in Christ, all good things will be yours in abundance. 

That sounds so much like the gospel of prosperity, which a number of Evangelicals preach today. Instead of serving the poor and the sick, they demand 10% of their income and insist that if they would only accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour, their lives would prosper financially. It would seem that something similar was happening in the fourth century. 

But this goes on for thirteen days straight in the Office of Readings. It is unrelenting. An example of a good shepherd who does not run from the wolves because he loves the sheep more than he loves himself is Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, who was canonized a saint in 2018 by Pope Francis. His preaching and visible solidarity with the poor was rather distressing to many of his brother bishops in El Salvador, who were playing it safe for the sake of avoiding any kind of blow back from the wealthy oligarchy. Romero said: 

It is very easy to serve the word without making the world uncomfortable. A word that is very spiritual, a word with no commitment to history, a word that can be heard in any part of the world because it doesn’t belong anywhere; this kind of word doesn’t cause problems, doesn’t give rise to conflicts.

Romero also said: 

Charity is above all love of neighbor. And, even though one is a bishop or a priest or has been baptized, if that person doesn’t follow the example of the Good Samaritan, if, like the bad priests of the old law, he goes a roundabout way so as to not encounter the wounded body, not touch such things, “be prudent, let’s not offend anybody, more gently,” then, brothers and sisters, we are not carrying out what God commanded: we are going a round-about way. …The Christian commitment is very serious. And, above all, our commitment as priests and bishops obliges us to go out and meet the poor wounded person on the road. 

And finally, he says: 

Let us pray, but not with the kind of prayer that alienates us, not with a kind of prayer that makes us avoid reality. We should never go to church as a flight from our duties on earth. Let’s go to church to get strength and clarity to return to better carry out our tasks at home, our political duties, our tasks in the organization. This is a healthy orientation to these things of earth. These are the true liberators.

The result of Romero’s fidelity to his office was that he was shot while saying mass on March 24th, 1980. It is easy to see why Pope Francis loved Romero and had him canonized–and we could quote from Pope Francis well into the next hour also, challenging his brother bishops to a greater openness and orientation to the world outside, recognizing Christ in the suffering, the poor and the oppressed. 

Another interesting line in the same chapter of the gospel quoted above is the following: “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, …” The people, the faithful, know the voice of the good shepherd, the voice of Christ. They know intuitively that Catholicism is about Christ, it’s not about us, it’s not about the clergy. It’s all about Christ who identifies with the sick, the suffering, the poor and those who struggle. I’ve been very impressed by a number of people in my own parish over the years, for although their children have stopped coming to Mass for various reasons–as a result of being personally scandalized by the reports of clerical sex abuse, which got a lot of media coverage in the 80s and 90s, or the role of the Church in the residential schools, or because of a bad experience with a priest, etc.,–, these parishioners stayed the course, always coming to Mass to hear the word of God in the readings and receive Christ in the Eucharist, because one some level they were able to distinguish between the voice of the good shepherd and the voice of the hired hand. So many people mistakenly believe that Catholicism is about the Church. Catholicism is not about us–we’re all just sinners, baptized and redeemed, forgiven and always struggling. It is about Christ, the second Person of the Trinity who drew close to us by joining a human nature to himself, who suffered and died so that we might find him in the midst of our own suffering and death, and in the sufferings and poverty of others. 

Deacon Douglas McManaman

After all these years, some people still speak about evolution and creation as though the two stand face to face on a level field, so to speak, and that the two are mutually exclusive. Many also have a tendency to think that stochastic processes and creation are incompatible and thus irreconcilable, insofar as creation is planned, while randomness appears to be unplanned. The following is an attempt to show that this is a misconception.

Evolution and creation are two ideas that belong to two different orders, if you will. Evolution belongs to the essential order while creation belongs to the existential order. Allow me to explain. We speak of the essence of a thing, and the essence describes “what” a thing is, and this includes how it acts and thus how it manifests itself, that is, how it reveals its nature (science is a study of the natures of things). For example, an organism is a living kind of thing, because it self-ambulates, and presupposing evolution we can say that organisms are the kinds of things that evolve via a process of random mutation and natural selection. We can say more about specific organisms than this, but whatever we accurately say about them along scientific lines simply allows us to understand “what” they are more deeply. 

However, we can know “what a thing is” (essence) without thereby knowing “whether or not it exists” (existence). The very act of existence of a being is not included in that thing’s essence–we can know what a dinosaur is without apprehending its existence outside the mind. This is true because whatever belongs to a thing’s nature or essence belongs to it necessarily. For example, the ability to reason belongs to the essence of a human being, and so if there is a human being on the other side of this door, then we can say that he or she necessarily has the ability to reason, at least to some degree. If the act of existing belonged to the essence of a being, such as the being behind this door, then we’d have to say that this being, whatever it is, exists necessarily, and thus could not not exist, and thus would have always existed. We would then say that such a being is a “necessary being”. But if we are talking about a being whose essence is really distinct from its act of existing, then such a being need not exist and can indeed “not exist”, such as this cat, or that person, or that tree, etc. We refer to such beings as contingent (may or may not be), as opposed to necessary.

Aquinas argues that even if we suppose that the universe always existed, it would still require a creator, and the reason is that the universe is the sum of the contingent beings that make it up. In other words, every being in the universe is a contingent being, a being whose essence is really distinct from its act of existing. Furthermore, no contingent being can bring itself into being, for that would require that a being exist before it actually exists, which is absurd. And no contingent being can impart the act of existing on what simply does not exist (creation ex nihilo) because a contingent being can only act within the limited powers of its nature, and existence does not belong to the nature (essence) of a contingent being–otherwise it would not be contingent, but a necessary being (eternal and having always existed). And so it follows that only a non-contingent being, that is, a necessary being, can impart the act of existing and thus bring into being what simply does not exist. 

To impart the act of existing is not the same as reproduction or generation. In order for an organism or two to reproduce or generate offspring, that organism must exist, and it must be sustained in existence–for a contingent being (i.e., an organism) cannot perpetuate its own act of existing any more than it can impart the act of existing. To perpetuate or sustain the act of existing is not the same as sustaining one’s life; I can sustain my life by eating and drinking, but in order to eat and drink, which are activities, I have to first exist and be sustained in existence. Only then can I act. 

This is why creation is not to be thought of as something that occurs at the beginning of time, and thus at the beginning of a horizontal timeline. The evolutionary process began at some point on a horizontal timeline, but not creation. Creation is to be thought of vertically, not horizontally. For example, I decide to run from point A to point B, and that can be depicted horizontally. But in order for me to complete the change from point A to point B, I must first exist and be sustained in existence throughout the change, because activity presupposes being or existence, for it is always a “being” that acts. So too with evolution. In order for an organism to evolve–which tells us something of the essence of the thing–, it must first exist, and an organism is not its existence; rather, an organism “has” a received act of existing. And so evolution requires creation (essence depends on existence). An evolving organism is a contingent being that is a determinate kind of thing (essence), but one which also has a received act of existing, an act of existing that does not belong to that thing’s nature.

Finally, stochastic processes belong to the essential order, not the existential order. For example, popcorn is a certain kind of food, but think of a bag of popcorn kernels spread out on a table. It is not possible for you or me to know which kernel is going to pop first, which one second, third, etc. Their popping is going to be entirely random. However, randomness is order–it is only a disorder relative to us (epistemic disorder, not a real disorder). The reason we say this is that real disorder is unintelligible; it cannot be the object of study, but the random popping of the kernels will follow a normal frequency distribution, which is an ordered and intelligible distribution, and so although we do not know which popcorn kernel is going to pop at any one time, we do know that there is a 68% chance that it will pop within a certain time span, and a 95% chance of popping within a slightly larger time span, etc. Or, we can put it like this: 68% of the kernels will pop within this specified time frame, 95% of the kernels will pop within this wider time frame, etc.[1] If the whole bag of popcorn is nothing other than the sum of its parts and the behavior of the whole is ordered, then the parts are also ordered, but in a way that exceeds our ability to understand at this point–perhaps even forever. 

And so it is perfectly coherent that God (the Necessary Being) would bring into being a universe that includes organisms that evolve as a result of stochastic processes. There is nothing disordered in this. The difficulty in conceiving this results from regarding the two orders, essence and existence, as mutually exclusive or merely on the same plane. The two orders are simultaneous, with the one depending on the other–essence depending on existence. 

Notes

1. If we listen to popcorn popping, we can hear the distribution, which when plotted on paper, looks like a bell curve. After a short time, one kernel will pop, then another, then two others in rapid succession, then three, four, and soon it will begin to sound like machine gun fire, and then it will slowly die down in the same way it began. The standard deviation is calculated using the following formula: √ [∑ (X1 – X)2  +  (X2 – X)2 + (X3 – X)2 + …..  /n], where X stands for the mean (i.e., 73 seconds), while X1, X2, X3, etc., stand for each observed result; for example, X1 is the first popcorn kernel that popped, and this took place at the 30 second mark. So, (X1 – X)2 is (30 – 73)2 + (30 – 73)2 + (35 – 73)2 + etc.,. /173. The standard deviation is the square root of the sum of each observed result minus the mean squared, divided by the total number.    

https://www.lifeissues.net/writers/mcm/mcm_410timeanddogma.html
or
https://wherepeteris.com/thoughts-on-time-and-dogma

Deacon Douglas McManaman

The very notion of the development of Catholic doctrine is of course very much in discussion today and will be for a long while yet, but it seems to me that the concept itself is a bit messier than is typically depicted. To illustrate what the development of doctrine looks like, analogies from the realm of art are often employed. Here, the artist begins with a general background and proceeds towards increasingly greater detail and precision; similarly, the Church’s formulated teaching goes from the general and more certain to greater detail and precision as new questions and problems arise throughout the Church’s history.

This is certainly true as far as it goes, but this picture might in some small ways be too neat and thus not entirely true to the facts; an artist will often go back and erase or paint over parts of what he drew or painted, because as it stands, a particular part of the unfinished product will not, if left alone, help to express what the artist intends, and it is only afterwards that he recognizes the incongruity.

Our own individual self-understanding is always, for the most part, imperfect, vague and lacking precision, more or less correct, and it is in time that our self-understanding becomes more explicit and truer to what we are at our most fundamental level. This growth in self-understanding often involves discarding elements of that self-understanding that are inconsistent with our fundamental orientation–I eventually come to the realization that “this is not me”, at least not entirely so. Similarly, the Church is a living organism, and living organisms are self-correcting. This self-correction occurs in history, and it may take centuries for this living organism that is the Church to correct herself with respect to a particular matter, but this self-correcting process can and often does involve erasures of certain parts that distort and thus fail to express or articulate the Church’s deepest self-understanding, which becomes more explicit as time goes on.

For example, consider the following excerpt from the Council of Florence (15th century):

The Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that those not living within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life, but will depart “into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels”, unless before the end of life the same have been added to the flock. The unity of the ecclesiastical body is so strong that only to those remaining in it are the Church’s sacraments of benefit for salvation, … and that no one, whatever almsgiving he has practiced, even if he has shed blood for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless he has remained in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.

There is here a clear ruling out of the further qualification of a person outside the visible borders of the Catholic Church who sheds his blood for Christ. However, let us compare this with the Second Vatican Council, section 15 of Lumen Gentium:

The Church recognizes that in many ways she is linked with those who, being baptized, are honored with the name of Christian, though they do not profess the faith in its entirety or do not preserve unity of communion with the successor of Peter. For there are many who honor Sacred Scripture, taking it as a norm of belief and a pattern of life, and who show a sincere zeal. They lovingly believe in God the Father Almighty and in Christ, the Son of God and Saviour. They are consecrated by baptism, in which they are united with Christ. They also recognize and accept other sacraments within their own Churches or ecclesiastical communities. Many of them rejoice in the episcopate, celebrate the Holy Eucharist and cultivate devotion toward the Virgin Mother of God. They also share with us in prayer and other spiritual benefits. Likewise we can say that in some real way they are joined with us in the Holy Spirit, for to them too He gives His gifts and graces whereby He is operative among them with His sanctifying power. Some indeed He has strengthened to the extent of the shedding of their blood. In all of Christ’s disciples the Spirit arouses the desire to be peacefully united, in the manner determined by Christ, as one flock under one shepherd, and He prompts them to pursue this end. Mother Church never ceases to pray, hope and work that this may come about. (LG 15)

So, although a person may not be in communion with the successor of Peter, he or she is nevertheless united to the Church by virtue of baptism, grace, prayer, love of scripture, even martyrdom, etc. The possibility of salvation is even extended to the unbaptized, to non-Christians (Jews, Muslims, and certain so called “atheists”):

Finally, those who have not yet received the Gospel are related in various ways to the people of God. In the first place we must recall the people to whom the testament and the promises were given and from whom Christ was born according to the flesh. On account of their fathers this people remains most dear to God, for God does not repent of the gifts He makes nor of the calls He issues. But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Muslims, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind. Nor is God far distant from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, for it is He who gives to all men life and breath and all things, and as Saviour wills that all men be saved. Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience. Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life. Whatever good or truth is found amongst them is looked upon by the Church as a preparation for the Gospel. She knows that it is given by Him who enlightens all men so that they may finally have life. (LG 16)

The various and subtle ways that a person can be related to the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ the Head, had not, at that point in time, dawned on the fathers of Florence; that will take another 500 years—unless of course there is buried somewhere textual evidence that shows otherwise, in which case the Florence fathers would have been the worst of communicators. It is easy to imagine that had they been given these two sections of Lumen Gentium in writing, the parchment would have ended up in the fireplace rather quickly.

This, I believe, is an example of a genuine development, which involves more than a greater attention to detail, but an erasure of sorts, a restating with parts left out, a “painting over” of a section whose formulation did not quite express the mind and heart of the Church, which was much better expressed at Vatican II. The fathers of the Council of Florence would not have recognized the value of these distinctions at the time, but the mind and heart of the Church is always much larger than the mind of an individual cleric or group of clerics, who although they possess a charism and as a whole constitute the organ of the charism of infallibility, are always limited by matter, geography and time.

Furthermore, the current self-understanding of the Church and her teachings are not solely communicated to us through conciliar texts. We all know the expression: “Actions speak louder than words”. We act on the basis of what we know and profess, and so not only do we often regret what we said in the past, which articulates what we thought was fundamental and true at the time, we also regret what we did in the past. Actions are a universal language. As Christ said: “You will know them by their fruits” (Mt 7, 16). This implies that fruits are indicative; they reveal. The Church does not sanction torture and killing as she once did (i.e., heretics), nor slavery, nor would the Church tolerate a Johann Tetzel today; a modern-day Luther would not fear for his life and would gladly visit Rome to explain himself, and Rome would listen. Every teacher knows that we teach first and foremost by our actions, because actions are words. Every person looks back on his own life and regrets what he or she said at one time or another, or how it was said, and this is true of the Church in the world. Further qualifications are a kind of erasure, that is, an instance of painting over an earlier brush stroke that was heading in the wrong direction.

Piet Fransen S.J. points out that a council is the Church in action at a given time and place in history, and that a dogma is not so much an endpoint as it is a starting point, a new beginning, and that it ought to be interpreted and reinterpreted in dialogue with the sensus fidei. Similarly, a brush stroke is not an endpoint, but a beginning. Dogmas are not free from historical evolution, and conciliar texts, like scripture, must be subject to the same kind of literary criticism, that is, the distinction between assertion and proposition is just as important for conciliar texts as it is for scripture.

In this light, it is a bit more difficult to articulate precisely what infallibility means. It is indeed a charism that belongs to the Church as a whole, and the magisterium is its organ. But, as Piet Fransen writes: “We are also profoundly conscious of the precariousness of human truth. This is all the more so with “divine truth”, since any human formulation of it necessarily falls short of the richness and fullness of the divine reality. If it is permissible to talk of infallibility in relation to man, it must first be a qualification of an activity, and not of a proposition, and that under the guidance of the infallible God. Infallibility is a property of a free person; never of a sentence, since any sentence as such, without its context, can be understood and read in many different ways. Whenever we are allowed a participatory form of infallibility, then this infallibility does not lie so much in the formulation itself but in the concrete intention, the affirmative direction, the so-called “significance” of this particular formulation” (See “Unity and Confessional Statements. Historical and Theological Inquiry of R. C. Traditional Conceptions”, in Hermeneutics of the Councils and Other Studies. Collected by H.E. Mertens and F. De Graeve. Leuven University Press, 1985. P. 279-280).

How this charism works on the ground is thus historical and dialectical, often a struggle that involves the faithful and everyone who is united in some way to the Church, and so it involves dialogue, an ability to observe the Church as a whole and listen, including those who are invisibly united and related to the Church, which in turn requires an openness to the world, a model of the Church hinted at by Pope John XXIII. This dialogue, Fransen writes, “should spread in four concentric circles over the entire world. The first dialogue is with the “members of the household of the faith” (Gal 6, 10), the members of the Church. In the second place, the dialogue with those who sincerely believe in Christ, but are still standing outside the unity of the Church. Next, the dialogue with those who believe in God but have as yet no knowledge of Christ. Finally, the dialogue with all men of goodwill, whatever their persuasion—provided they are sincere and have pity on “man and his woes”. (The New Life of Grace, translated by George Dupont, S.J. London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1971, p. 187)

Many of the faithful, however, are afraid to bend, because they believe that if they bend, they will break, i.e., lose their faith, and that everything which belongs to my faith will now potentially make its way to the sewer. But this is a serious misconception. We have to allow God to bend our faith; for we believe in the gospel and through the gift of understanding we apprehend to some degree, through the light of faith that gives rise to that gift, the gospel that we embrace, but we do not apprehend it in its fullness. There are theological implications to what we choose to believe that have yet to be drawn out, and these implications, which make for a much richer understanding, may not be drawn out in our lifetime. But it cannot be denied that all our thoughts and dogmatic formulae fall short of the divine fullness, the inexhaustible mystery of God.

This question refers more to severe and never ending suffering, such as an infant born with a disability, or severe mental health issues, or the extreme tragedies of war. 

Deacon Doug McManaman

This is the great question, and I deal with this all the time in my ministry to the sick, and there is no simple and straightforward answer. There are two levels on which to deal with this question: on the concrete level, and on a more abstract level. The more abstract the level of discourse, the greater the certainty we possess. As we move to the concrete level of everyday life and individual persons, the less certainty we possess.

So, when I have a person in front of me who is suffering from PTSD as a result of a tragic event (i.e., vehicle accident that ended in the death of a young child), or a person who has been battling depression all her life and has suffered terrible abuse throughout her life, and I am asked: “Why does God allow all this suffering in my life”, my answer is: “I don’t know”. And I’d be a fool to attempt to answer her question, for “Who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor?” (Is 40, 13; and quoted by Paul in Romans 11, 34). On this level, things are buried in mystery, and mystery has to be revered, not solved.

But, let’s move to a more general level. This is what we can be certain of: First, the God we worship is all-powerful, which means he can do whatever he wills–nothing limits his power. Secondly, God is Love (1 Jn 4, 7), which means he wants your greatest happiness. 

If God was all-powerful, but not pure Goodness Itself (Love Itself), then God could very well bring about your greatest happiness, but he would not necessarily desire it (because God does not necessarily love you, that is, will what is absolutely the best for you). If, on the other hand, God is Love, but he is not all-powerful, then he wills your greatest happiness, but he simply does not have the power to bring it about. Parents typically know this feeling–we want the best for our children, but we are so limited in what we can do for them. However, the God we worship is both all powerful and absolute Love. This implies that whatever God chooses to allow to happen to you and to me in this life, he allows it ultimately for our greatest happiness. That is a conclusion that follows necessarily, but on a very abstract and general level. 

However, why he allowed you to suffer this or that particular trauma, or why he allowed this child to be born with a severe disability, is entirely, completely, and utterly beyond my ken. I have no idea, and because I have no idea, I should not attempt an answer. But I can say that you and I will understand at some point, when we stand before God at the end of time. In fact, we can often look at our own past (retrospection) and discern something of the truth of this, for example, I often look back at my life and notice that my greatest disappointments in life have turned out to be my greatest blessings. I didn’t see that at the time, but I see it now. And so, it is important for us to remember these moments, especially during times of present day disappointments. God is all powerful and he can draw greater good out of the evils that plague us than had these evils never occurred. We know this is true in the case of our redemption. God became flesh in the Person of Christ; God the Son dwelt among us, and we crucified the Son of God. The tragedy of Good Friday was our salvation. As we hear during the singing of the Easter Vigil: “O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!”

It’s just not possible for me to know all the factors involved in God’s decision to allow this or that to have happened in this or that person’s life. Human knowledge is profoundly limited. We can’t predict the future, and even trained meteorologists are unable to predict the weather beyond 7 days; the weather is a chaotic system, and so is life (a chaotic system is ordered, but too complex for us to grasp in all its details). 

There is another angle from which we can look at this question, and this is more theological. Christ did not redeem us from sin through his preaching, i.e., his sermon on the Mount, nor did he redeem us through his miracles. He redeemed humanity through his suffering and death (the Paschal Mystery). The greatest gift he gives us is the gift of faith, which is the gift by which we are given the capacity to believe him, to know him, to surrender to him, to follow him, and following him is always a sharing in his “way of the cross”. So the greatest gift we can be given is to share in his saving work; we participate in his “saving of the world” through our sufferings. This is hard to explain to people–impossible to explain to those who have little or no faith. But consider the life of any saint in the history of the Church–their lives are filled with suffering, frustrations, set backs, obstacles, and in many cases, the suffering is the result of the actions of the Church–this is true of St. Padre Pio and the sufferings he underwent as a result of the clerical envy of his brother priests of the surrounding diocese of Foggia, who should have known better, or as a result of opposition from the Vatican, who were often misinformed about Padre Pio. He, like other saints, shared in the saving of souls, and he did so to a certain degree through his words and his miracles, but primarily through his sharing in the sufferings of Christ. There are people among us who suffer, and we often know nothing about it, and there is great prosperity in parts of the world, and it is very possible that this prosperity is the fruit of their sufferings, at least in part. Some priests from Africa have said to me that they believe certain African nations, torn by war and constant civil strife, have been chosen to share, in a unique way, in the redemption of the world today. To see this and embrace this requires faith, however. 

The sufferings of this world are all rooted in human sin, i.e., selfishness, the desire for power, hatred, unforgiveness, anger, the inordinate desire for pleasure and ease, indifference to those who are without, individualism, indifference to injustice, etc. So we are the cause of suffering in the world, but as Mother Teresa pointed out, there are innocent sufferers. That’s what sin does, it afflicts the innocent who get swept away in the tide caused by human sin, i.e., children who suffer sexual or emotional abuse from parents or relatives, who in turn abuse because they were abused by their own relatives who suffered from stress related illnesses, and so on and so forth, children born in poverty, children caught in the crossfire, etc. Man is the source of suffering, but God is the source of redemption and healing, and God is “in history”, he acts in history, and God is in control of history’s movement, and we know from the resurrection, which is Christ’s definitive victory over death, that suffering and death do not have the final word over your life and my life. Christ was victorious over evil, sin, and death, and his victory is universal. So, although it seems that evil is victorious here and there, we know through the light of faith, that these are just moments in a larger movement and that in the end, life, grace, and the unimaginable joy of victory will be ours.