Homily

There was a poll taken in Britain recently and it showed that 67% of people there, who claimed to be religious, said that they questioned their belief in God because of the pandemic. It brings up a question that is often raised by atheists: If there is a God, how can He allow innocent people to suffer?

I understand that there are people who sincerely ask this question, but I have never really understood why they ask it. It seems to me that it depends on what your idea of God is; how you see Him and how you think He cares about us.

God is God. He’s not some big powerful genie in the clouds the way many atheists like to think Christians believe. He is beyond and apart from all created things, and not a part of it. But at the same time, since He is the Creator, He cares very much for all He has made. Indeed, without His upholding all of the material world, none of it would exist. He did not create the universe, nor did He create us, without a plan or a purpose. We are not the Legos in God’s toybox that He takes out when He gets bored. He cares deeply for what He has made and most of all for us, who are made in His image and likeness. This is what Christians believe.

Scripture tells us something else about God, and it does so in many places.

There is something of a mystery in why God allows suffering, especially the suffering of those who are most innocent. And we do not have to look further than our Lord, Jesus Christ, the most innocent of all people of all times, Who Himself suffered greatly for our sake and our salvation. And this was according to the plan of God. But we cannot fully understand the plan of God because our understanding is not God’s understanding. We either have to say that God is uncaring and unloving because He allows suffering, or we believe that God has a loving purpose in allowing suffering, a purpose that we cannot always see, because we are not God. It seems to me very arrogant to believe that God must act how I see fit, and it seems to me very egotistical to think my idea of how a loving God is better than God’s own plan.

When a very young child is sick or injured and his parents take him to the hospital for treatment it can be very frightening for that child. Treatment can seem very scary and sometimes it is painful in itself, and that child rebels and cries and begs to be left alone and go home. No amount of explanation will help because a young child is not capable of understanding what is going on, or what needs to be done, or how it will lead to good things in the end.

In a similar way we are often not capable of truly understanding the role of suffering in our lives, or the lives of other people. But surely the Lord is not cruel or uncaring. He is not the author of evil. So, there must be some good in His plan that we do not see, that we do not understand and like Job the Just, we who accept good from God should also be willing to accept troubles in this life.

And I think this is really more of a problem for people in modern Western societies, than for the Christians in Rome that St. Paul was writing to. We have enjoyed periods of great peace and prosperity which have led some people to believe that this is what our lives are all about: to enjoy the good life as we see fit according to our own understanding. It is easy to see that way of thinking which has overtaken so many people in our country. Health, wealth, and pleasure have become the greatest values in life. The pandemic threatened those values, so no wonder some people began to question their belief in God.

My little finger wound pales in comparison with the beatings, the whippings and all the sufferings that St. Paul received simply because he preached the Gospel. And yet he never questioned the love of God and never shrank away from proclaiming that love until the day he was executed. He deeply experienced the love of his Lord, and so he knew that this same Lord would never allow him harm unless there was a purpose behind it. He even tells of begging the Lord to take away what he called a “thorn in the flesh” and the Lord did not do so. Instead, St. Paul says the Lord replied, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul trusted in His word.

Like St. Paul, we too should always pray that the Lord remove our sufferings and the suffering of others, but we must always pray knowing that God will always do what is best for us.

Health, wealth, and pleasure. The three goals in life so many Americans today hope to achieve and worry that they will not enjoy them. To love the Lord our God with our whole mind, whole heart, whole soul, and our neighbor as our self. These are the goals of a life in Christ. Let us continue to worship, pray and work to achieve these goals, for we do not seek heaven on earth, but we must live on earth as those bound for heaven.