Why is there Suffering?

Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

In my five years as a priest, I’ve had a lot of questions, both from children and adults.  The questions kids ask sometimes seem silly, but show real engagement with what the Church teaches: Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons?; Where is heaven?  Sometimes they’re come more from movies and TV shows.  Around this time of year with Halloween around the corner I often hear: Have you ever seen an exorcism?; Is it hard to get possessed?  After five years, I’ve heard probably every question asked in one way or another.  And most questions I can answer without any relative problem.  But there’s one question, asked by both kids and adults, that is tough to answer: why do bad things happen to good people?  In essence, the question is: why is there suffering in the world?

It’s not an easy question to answer.  And the answer that people often desire is an answer which will make the pain of suffering go away.  We can talk about different types of suffering: there is natural suffering that comes from the way the world was created, like hurricanes, tornadoes, etc., which is just part of the way that the world continues its natural processes.  We can talk about moral evil, about someone experiencing pain because of another person, that is much harder to answer.  We can look back to the story of the Fall, when humanity in Adam chose to sin and disobey God, and how we are all affected by that choice, but that answer doesn’t really satisfy.

When children have to bury their parent at a young age; when a parent has to bury a child at any age; when a loved-one succumbs to the ravages of alzheimer’s and no longer recognizes anyone; when an employer or manager has to lay off employees simply to keep the company solvent; when you’re the employee that was laid off and you don’t know how you will make ends meet for you and your family; when a parent or parents have to make a decision that upsets children in such a way that the relationship is damaged, but which is in the best interest for the children; those are all experiences of suffering that a lot of theology about Original Sin and fallen humanity doesn’t quite take away the pain.  One of my most difficult moments as a priest was trying to comfort a family after the father, Shaye Ramont, died from multiple fights with cancer at the age of 50, and left behind a widow and 6 children that I knew, the oldest of which was in high school and the youngest of which were twins in elementary school.  At that moment, no theological gymnastics could take away the pain that the Ramont family was experiencing.  All I could do was just hug them, love them, and pray for them.  

So it seems like suffering has no answer.  And that doesn’t sound like very good news.  But our readings, the Word of God, give us the good news today, and, while they don’t answer the question of why bad things happen to good people, they do give us comfort.  The Prophet Isaiah today speaks of a suffering servant, whom the Lord is pleased to crush in infirmity, but who, through suffering, justifies many and bears their guilt.  The suffering servant is Jesus, who gave “his life as an offering for sin.”  While Isaiah looked in the future to prophesy the suffering servant, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews looks back at Jesus, and preaches Him as “a high priest” who is able “to sympathize with our weaknesses, [and] who has been similarly tested in every way, yet without sin.”  Jesus knows us, not just in an etherial sense, but in His humanity Jesus suffered and understood what suffering was.  Jesus had to bury His foster-father, St. Joseph; He saw real agony at the funeral of the only son of a widow; He experienced the death of one of His best friends, Lazarus; He was betrayed and abandoned by His best friends and followers; He was rejected by the very people He came to help; and He experienced the physical pain of the crucifixion, as well as the emotional pain of having to watch His own mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, watch Him die in a most agonizing way.

The good news is that our God, in the person of Jesus, took upon Himself all our suffering, and experienced it throughout His earthly life.  Sometimes the hardest thing about suffering is that we feel alone.  No matter who else has gone through similar circumstances, there is a realization that no one else knows exactly what we’re going through, and that isolation adds to the pain of the already painful situation.  But Jesus does know.  Jesus walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death, and never abandons us.  Our God loved us enough to sacrifice His Only-Begotten Son so that we would not be alone in suffering, but could always have someone to suffer with.  That is how Jesus came for us: not to be served but to serve, and to give His life for us so that we would not be alone precisely when we feel the most alone: in our suffering.

Whatever our suffering, we can unite it to Jesus on the cross.  We can allow Jesus to walk with us in our suffering so that we are not alone.  It is not an answer to the problem of bad things happening to good people, but it is a consolation to know that whatever our suffering, we are not alone.  Whatever pain you are undergoing at this time, or whatever pain you will undergo in the future, never be afraid to turn to Jesus and say, “Jesus, please walk with me during this time of pain and suffering.  Unite my suffering with yours on the cross.  Help me to know that I’m not alone, but that you suffer with me.”  Amen.

"Rebuild My Church"

Solemnity of the Dedication of St. Joseph Church

While praying at the Church of San Damiano, Francis of Assisi heard Christ speak to him from a crucifix, saying, “Francis, rebuild my church, which you can see is falling into ruin.”  Francis though that Jesus was speaking to him of the physical structure of the little church, and so he started to rebuild it, stone by stone.  But, gradually, Francis realized that Jesus meant that Francis was to rebuild not a physical structure, but the Church, the living stones of God’s temple.  

I tell that story, not because last week was the day which celebrates St. Francis on 4 October; not because our current supreme pontiff is named Francis, after St. Francis of Assisi.  I tell that story because, on this day on which we celebrate the dedication of this beautiful church, Jesus is asking us to do the same.  

Today, Jesus invites us to be rebuilt into the living stones of God’s temple in heaven.  To be honest, that’s a life-long process.  As Bishop Mengeling so often says, we’re not done yet.  We are not done being formed into those living stones until the day we die, and even then, many of us will likely still be shaped through the purification of Purgatory.  And although today is a day of rejoicing, as we look at the status of the Church, we could easily become depressed.  

While the Diocese of Lansing is doing ok, more priests are retiring or are at retirement age, than we are ordaining.  We need more men to respond to God’s call to follow Jesus as a priest and serve His people, especially through providing the Sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance, which, without priests, we do not have.  More and more families are not putting God as their first priority.  We see this through fewer couples getting married in the Church; fewer baptisms; fewer people attending Mass or practicing their faith in any way, shape, or form.  It leads so many parents and pastors to ask, “What did I do wrong?  What more was I supposed to do?”  Fewer and fewer people understand their faith and what the Church teaches.  There is confusion about marriage, about the Eucharist, about sin, even about who Jesus is and the necessity of Jesus and His Mystical Body, the Church, for salvation.  The Church, in so many ways, is in disrepair.  Before this vast undertaking, we can easily ask ourselves a question that St. Francis perhaps asked himself: what I can, an individual, do, to rebuild the Church?  The task is so great!

But Our God is a God of hope, not despair.  And so there is a way to respond to Jesus’ call to each of us to rebuild His Church.  And this divine renovation cannot happen by money; we cannot throw dollars at this problem.  The rebuilding happens with us being shaped into the living stone that God wants us to be.  The plan is the same as it was for St. Francis: become a saint.  That’s all it takes.  We tend to think of the saints as those who did extraordinary things.  And certainly there are some canonized saints who did amazing things.  But as St. Thérèse teaches us, we don’t have to do great things.  God does want us to do little things with great love.  Some God might call to do great things, but let’s all start where we can, by doing little things with great love.

The first way to respond to God’s invitation is to develop a relationship with Him.  Many of us know, at least a little, about Jesus.  But how many of us know Jesus?  You can know a lot about a person without knowing that person  The way that we start to get to know Jesus is not complicated.  Two practices suffice: daily prayer and going to Mass at least every Sunday and Holyday.  Mass is where we encounter God in a most intimate way through the Body and Blood of Jesus.  We receive God into us.  Why do we go to Mass?  Is it because of an obligation?  Is it because we want to hear good music?  Is it because we’re convinced that one of these Sundays Father Anthony is actually going to give a good homily?  Those are all things that might get us into the door, but those reasons won’t keep many of us going to Mass each Sunday and Holyday.  We go to Mass to worship God and to receive God into us.  Going to Mass for any other reason is like going to a football game for the band.  Bands are great!  I love the MSU Marching Band.  But you don’t drop the kind of money you would for a football game just for the band (though some band parents might).  The reason for going to a football game is to watch football.  All the other stuff is extra.  You have received season tickets, worth more money than all the gold in Fort Knox, to a preview of heaven and an encounter with God through sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.  Going to Mass at least every Sunday and Holyday is a great way to start to become a saint.  Now I know that I’m preaching to the choir.  But we all know someone, maybe a friend, maybe a family member, who hasn’t been to Mass in a while.  Invite them to come back home.  Invite them to come to Mass with you.  

Daily prayer is another way to begin to become the saint that God wants us to be.  It is supposed to be the growth from our experience at Mass.  How often do you talk to your colleagues at work?  How often do you talk to your friends?  How often do you talk to your spouse or your children?  If you talk to God less than any of these people, or any others, there’s room for improvement.  The less you think you need to pray, the more you actually do.  And don’t forget to listen.  Conversations are two-way streets.

Those are two simple ways to start becoming the saint that God called each of you to be in baptism.  There are more.  But let’s start with the basics.  Then we can talk about reading Scripture regularly, sharing faith in small groups, going on yearly retreats or to the Women’s or Men’s Conferences.  There’s a lot of disrepair in the church right now.  We can easily despair.  But, if we become saints, in God’s way for us as an individual, just like St. Francis responded to God’s way for him to become a saint as an individual, then God’s church will be rebuilt.  There will be more good news.  And, most importantly, we’ll prepare ourselves to be ready to spend eternity in heaven with God, enveloped by His love with all the other people who were saints and helped to rebuild God’s church.  God is inviting you today: rebuild his Church!