"Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?"
Mk 4:35-41
Jesus was sound asleep at the rear end of the boat. He was probably very tired so that even with the noise of the wind and the pounding of the waves, he remained asleep. The apostles were experienced fishermen. They knew they were in a dangerous situation. So they woke Jesus and reproached him: “Don’t you care that we’ll all die?” Jesus commanded the wind and the waves to keep still. And the sea became calm once more. Now Jesus turned to his apostles and reproached them: “Why are you so afraid? Don’t you believe that I care about you?”
Today we will confront the problem of evil in the world.
During World War II in a Nazi concentration camp, four men were hanged in front of all the prisoners. One of them was just a teenager. It took him a while to die because he was not heavy enough. One of the prisoners survived the concentration camp. After World War II, he wrote about his experiences in that camp. Talking about the hanging, he wrote that at that moment he asked: “Where is God?”
Hundreds of years before during the persecution of Catholics in England, many Catholics were tortured and put to death for remaining firm in the Catholic faith. One man wrote: “God must be asleep.”
Stated simply the problem is: If there is an all-powerful and good God, how come there is so much evil in the world? Either there is no God or there is God but evil is more powerful than God.
Some will say: “Let us trust God. He knows what he is doing that is why he allows evil to happen in the world.”
Others will say that God allows evil to happen but he will find a way to bring good out of that evil. This is the meaning of the statement: God writes straight with crooked lines.
Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist. He died in 1997. He was a survivor of the Nazi concentration camp. He did not ask question: “If there is a God, how come were are suffering here in a Nazi concentration camp?” But he did offer the secret of surviving suffering. The secret is faith. He said once you lose faith, you will not survive. In fact, many committed suicide by flinging themselves on the electrified barbed wires of the concentration camp.
Rabbi Kushner lost his son to premature aging. This caused in him a crisis of faith. He survived that crisis and wrote a book to help people to survive suffering and evil. The title of the book is “When Bad Things Happen to Good People”. He is not a Christian. He is Jewish. But he does give an answer that we find in the book of Job. And it is this: “If we want to find an explanation as to why good people suffer, we will discover in the end that there is no satisfying answer.” Where does that leave us? It leaves us with the advice of Viktor Frankl. Keep your faith in God. It is that faith that will give you the strength to survive and go on living meaningfully.
Let us turn to Scriptures regarding the problem of evil and suffering.
What does St. Paul say? He complains of a thorn in the flesh. It may refer to a sickness, to a temptation or to a person who was giving him a hard time. He asked Jesus to free him from this thorn. But Jesus replies that his grace is enough to help Paul withstand this thorn. “Therefore, that I might not become too elated, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, but he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness" (2Cor 12: 7-9). Someone had this in mind when he said: “God will not lead you where his grace can not keep you.” Here again the Christian response to suffering and evil is faith.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about the providence of God. Providence means that God takes care of us. He does not abandon us. “Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?” (Mt 6: 26-30). We have been told that the Christian response to suffering and evil is faith. In this passage this faith is explained. We are told to believe in the providence of God. It means that God takes care of us because we are important in the eyes of God.
St. John Bosco experienced surviving a famine because of his mother’s faith in the providence of God.
St. John Bosco’s father died when he was barely 2 years old. On his death bed, his father encouraged his mother, “Margaret, have confidence in God.” Francis Bosco died leaving Margaret three children and his ailing mother.
That year there was drought. There was hunger everywhere. They found dead people in the fields with grass in their mouths. They were trying to relieve their hunger.
The Bosco family were farmers. They, too, were hungry. They asked a neighbor to buy food at the surrounding villages even at an exorbitant price. But he returned empty-handed. Margaret gathered the family and they knelt in prayer. Rising to her feet, Margaret said that her husband recommended confidence in God. She decided to kill the calf to provide food for the family. That calf was their insurance for the future.
With faith in the providence of God, but also with hard work, thrift and resourcefulness, the Bosco family survived the famine of that year.
Evil and suffering are inescapable. It is part of our life on earth. What is the secret to surviving evil and suffering? Faith in the providence of God.
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