A Word About Human Suffering and the Political, Cultural, and Religious Division of Our Time

It seems whenever there arise instances of human suffering, God is the first one to be blamed for not doing anything to eradicate it. People experience the atrocities of war, catastrophic illness, natural disasters, famine, and the like. We become angry at God for not intervening to stop the suffering or we stop believing in Him altogether unable to reconcile how a loving and all powerful God could allow His children to suffer so much.

The truth is that God never intended humanity to suffer and certainly did not create the circumstances by which suffering entered the world. We did! God created a perfect world full of everything we could ever need or want. God’s will for us was, and still is, perfect happiness and well-being. At the moment mankind strayed from His will,  the ingredients for every form of human suffering entered our world. What do I mean by this? Well let’s take a look at how different forms of sin attributed to human suffering.

With regard to the suffering created by war. Think of the sins that would cause us to impose our wills on the lives of others by force; thinking of others as less human because of race or ethnicity; to unlawfully take possession of the property of others by force; This is not God’s doing but the exercise of our free will choice not to love our neighbor the way God loves us. We act outside of His will! His fault? Not!

What about illnesses such as cancer? The resources God provided us with initially were pure and good for our health and well-being. The water and food provided by God was all we required to nourish and sustain us. It is when man fueled by greed and pride began to alter God’s perfect providence, not with the pure intention of benefiting mankind, but intending rather to benefit his bank account. Over time, harmful chemicals were introduced and other injurious farming techniques served to deplete nutrients from our food were introduced, many of which were driven by a desire to increase the profit margin and not the quality of the produce. We began to pollute our water sources and the food sources within them with the poison chemicals produced by greedy manufacturers while never giving much thought about the impact it would have on the health of humankind. Once again greed, power, and control. How was this God’s fault?

Think of the money, energy, and resources that have been spent on the proliferation of weapons and methods to annihilate one another rather than assist one another. How is this God’s fault? If the money, energy, and resources spent on destroying one another were applied to helping and loving one another, I dare say that the suffering caused by war, famine, and illness would be dramatically decreased. I don’t think one person on earth would ever have to go hungry, thirsty, or without health care or shelter!

Look at the cultural and political division of our time. Pride, greed, self-aggrandizement, and corruption are at the heart of the division we are experiencing, a division in which nothing can get accomplished to make the world a better place in which to live.

We can tremendously help to eliminate much human suffering and strife if we put our selfish, prideful agendas away and begin to work together for the common good. This is what God wills for mankind. Politicians and leaders of countries, do you hear what I am saying? Abandon your pride, humble yourself and repent. Ask God to help us work together for the common good. Ask for wisdom and all the virtue necessary to lead in a way that brings us together for the good of all mankind! This is God’s will and He will say yes to those prayers. God’s grace is always available to us. We only need cooperate with that grace!  

“if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14

For the wages of sin is death . . .

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23 NAB)

A question often raised by those who have wandered away or have lost their faith is – How can a “loving God” allow so much pain and suffering in the world, i.e., the atrocities of war, starvation, disease, abortion . . .?

The answer is simple yet difficult for most to accept because the counter argument for these skeptics goes something like this – “If God is all powerful He could put an end to it at any time!”

Let’s address the two questions:

First of all, pain, human misery, and suffering all began with the original sin of Adam and Eve, whose free will God respected. Think of the following analogy: God is the perfect parent who knows what’s best for His children, i.e., His will for us! As human parents we strive to lead our children in certain directions in an attempt to ensure that they have the best life possible, but in many cases they reject these attempts because they believe their way is better! Most of us know what happens when we do not follow our parents’ advice!

As human history continued man’s continuing rejection of God’s will eventually led to more and more misery and suffering up to the present day.

Secondly, although He has the power to end it all immediately, God cannot! By doing so He would in effect be saying, Go ahead, behave anyway you like without consequences.

Like any parent, God our Heavenly Father hates to see His children suffer! But again, God will not interfere with our free will to love or reject Him. Human parents have very little, or sometimes no control over their children once they have reached adulthood! Remember, without the free choice to love someone, true love cannot exist, and God wants us to choose to love Him freely!

Through the passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, God has provided the means by which death, sin and suffering is defeated. Most Christians believe that this will only occur when Christ returns, but if you think about it, although man will continue to sin because of his nature, much of the death and suffering we now experience in this world could be eliminated if we only followed what Jesus taught us!

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is asked by a Pharisee (a scholar of the law), "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" Jesus responded, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments." (Matt 22:34-40 NAB)

In conclusion, most who have seen Mel Gibson’s movie, Passion of the Christ, I’m sure would agree that Christ painfully suffered immense physical torture. What the film does not accurately portray however, is what must have amounted to the greatest source of Christ’s suffering, and that is the visions he must have had, and the knowledge he possessed of the suffering and atrocities humankind would endure due to their rejection of God’s will which Jesus came to reveal.

Throughout history, man has an spent an inordinate amount of time, energy, and resources devising ways to inflict death and suffering upon one another. If only it had been spent caring for and loving one another!

The following video is graphic and only one example of the many things Christ must have visualized during his passion. It’s no wonder he sweat blood in the Garden of Gethsemane! PLEASE! Let us repent and pray that all will turn to Christ so that the suffering depicted in this video and all such human suffering will not be repeated!

We Are Being Deceived!

To my Catholic brothers and sisters,

We live in a time in which many misconceptions and beliefs have arisen about the truth of our Catholic faith, especially here in the United States.

Concerning SIN and HELL, rest assured these are both still very real!

We don’t seem to hear much about them anymore because they have become unpopular and uncomfortable topics for today’s believers. The Church can only refrain from incorporating teachings on sin and punishment and the remedy for such, as it is found in the sacraments, at the risk of placing many in peril concerning their salvation from eternal damnation!

Jesus has much to say about SIN and HELL in the gospels, all of which has been included in the Magisterial teachings of the Church. All we have to do is take some time away from our televisions, or any one of the many other trivial distractions we engage in, and break out the Catechism of the Catholic Church to learn more about what Christ offers us through His Church!

The bottom line is that you are not free to pick and choose what to believe as truth concerning the teachings of the Church. This is why we as Catholics enjoy one teaching authority, The Magisterium! It is the truth which has endured for the past 2000 years!

We tend to choose to believe and practice only what suits our lifestyles and the rest we discard. Take the Sacrament of Reconciliation for example! Today 75 percent of American Catholics say they don't see the importance of formal confession. That is not what the Catholic Church teaches!

The Church teaches that intentionally missing Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation is a mortal sin, as is sexual relations outside of marriage, as is also the use of artificial means of contraception, yet so many of us commit the sacrilege of receiving Christ in the Eucharist each week in the state of mortal sin rather than confessing and repenting of these sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation!

Please, brothers and sisters, let’s not fall victim to the deceptions concerning our Catholic faith, which Satan continues to so easily and effectively propagate!

I urge you to take some time to learn of the healing and nourishing grace filled power of the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Eucharist and to practice the faith in accordance with its true teachings!

Peace!