Abbey-Roads2

The problem of innocent suffering and stuff you just can’t fix or explain away.

This past week there were two local news stories that really got to me.  One story concerned a newborn baby, born at a local hospital whose oxygen dome caught fire and the little kid is now in critical condition - badly burned.  The other story was about a toddler whose mother died and she just stayed by her mommy for three days until someone came in and found them.  The little baby still thinks her mom is just sick.

Doesn’t that tear your heart out?  What can you say about stuff like that!  You can’t say to the suffering - “Oh, it is God’s will.”  You can’t say to people close to them, “God is allowing this for your good, my good, anybody’s good.”  And you better not say, “God is punishing them for sin.”  We don’t really know that - I don’t care what theologians say - we don’t understand the mystery of innocent suffering.  Human beings cannot explain mysteries.  All we can do is speculate or parrot something someone else once said. 

Certainly God draws good out of evil, but it makes you want to tear your heart out and scream when confronted with innocent suffering.  Which is the reason why St. Francis wept at the sight of lambs…  they reminded him of the sufferings of the innocent Christ.

He simply wept.

Always a day of penance.

Penitence may be likened to a tree, having its root in contrition,
biding itself in the heart as a tree-root does in the earth; out of
this root springs a stalk, that bears branches and leaves of
confession, and fruit of satisfaction. Of this root also springs a
seed of grace, which is mother of all security, and this seed is
eager and hot; and the grace of this seed springs of God,
through remembrance on the day of judgment and on the pains
of hell. The heat of this seed is the love of God, and the desire
of everlasting joy; and this heat draws the heart of man to God,
and makes him hate his sin. Penance is the tree of life to them
that receive it. - Parson’s Tale: Canterbury Tales