Homily

There was a poll taken in Britain during the Covid pandemic, some 6 years ago now, and that poll showed that 67% of the people who claimed they were religious, said that they questioned their belief in God because of the pandemic. And that raised a point that is often used 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 and understand Him, and how you think He cares about us.

God is God. He is 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. He is not a part of His creation in any way. But at the same time, since He is the Creator, He has revealed Himself as One Who cares very much for all that 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 His toybox, the playthings of a powerful being. God cares deeply for what He has made, and most of all for us, created in His image and likeness. This is what Christians believe.

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

Romans 11:34: “Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor?”

Isaiah 40:13: “Who has directed the spirit of the Lord, or who has instructed Him as his counselor?”

Isaiah 55:8-9: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

There is definitely 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 should act 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.

The wound I suffered when I sliced open my fingertip could not even begin to compare with the beatings, the whippings and all the other 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” but the Lord did not take it away. 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. And also, like St. Paul, when we are suffering, let us offer our pains to the Lord, uniting them with the suffering of Christ as the apostle teaches us to do, and so many saints throughout the ages. If we cannot avoid the suffering, we can at least let it do some good in our offering to the Lord.

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 real goals of a life in Christ. So 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 people on the road to heaven.