A good friend of ours sent us this copy of the front page of St. Michael Parish's Sunday Bulletin from March 6, 2005. A very well written article that is right on target. We have been so Blessed by the spiritual leadership and the staff we have at St. Michael Parish and St. Katherine Drexel. They are one of the big reasons we are able to forge ahead through this journey in such a peaceful way. Thank you to all of the priest, deacons, and lay staff who strive forward every day to make a difference. It is working!
Cimply Putting it…..
When I was teaching high school, I used to tell my students the same thing that my teachers used to tell me: there are no dumb questions. Now while that may be true, I wonder if we might sometimes be asking the wrong questions.
When I was teaching high school, I used to tell my students the same thing that my teachers used to tell me: there are no dumb questions. Now while that may be true, I wonder if we might sometimes be asking the wrong questions.
Recently I was visiting with a family who was going through some of the hardest questions of life. Why do good people get cancer, or any other illness for that matter? Why can’t the ones we love be assured that they will live to be a ripe old age? Here’s the situation. The family has a teenage girl with cancer in her leg. When she was being tested for the cancer the family prayed that she wouldn’t have cancer, but she did. They then prayed that she wouldn’t have to have her leg amputated, but she did. They then prayed that she wouldn’t have to have chemotherapy, but she did. Then they prayed that she wouldn’t lose her hair, but she did. Were the prayers doing any good?
Most of us don’t ask these hard questions as long as life is going normally. Most of the time we have no difficulty with our basic assumptions about God and life. We believe that God is good and all-powerful. God is like a loving parent who wants only the best for us and will do everything in his power to see that it happens. As long as we are obedient, God rewards us. If we get out of line, God disciplines us. He protects us from being hurt or from hurting ourselves, and God sees to it that we get what we deserve.
But then something happens that doesn’t fit this picture of the way God works in our world. That’s when we look deeper and ask hard questions. “Why did this happen? Why did God do this? Why did God allow this?” Maybe we are asking the wrong questions. What if we asked, “God, see what is happing to me. Can you help me?”
The God I believe in does not send us the problem; but God gives us the strength to cope with the problem. God is responsible for the help, not the pain. One of the Old Testament psalms puts it this way: “My help comes from the Lord, maker of heaven and earth.” Notice the psalmist didn’t say, “My pain comes from the Lord.”
I don’t think God makes bad things happen to us. I don’t think God decides which families will give birth to an ill child. God doesn’t decide which person gets cancer today. God doesn’t single out certain people to be crippled with a bullet or degenerative disease. But sometimes bad things happen. When they do, God is on the side of healing. There is no answering the question, “Why did the happen?” But I’m sure God didn’t cause it to happen. The God I believe in stands ready to help me cope with my tragedies if I can only get past my feelings of guilt and anger that separate me from God. Asking, “How could God do this to me?” is the wrong question. A better question is, “Now that this has happened to me, what am I going to do about it?” This question helps to focus my attention not on the source of the tragedy but on where it leads.
As Christians we are not exempt from the laws of disease or the laws of nature. I have found that people who pray for miracles usually don’t get miracles any more than kids who pray for presents or good grades get them as a result of praying. But people who pray for courage, for strength to bear the unbearable, for the grace to face the tragedies of life very often find their prayers answered. They discover that they have more strength, more courage than they ever knew themselves to have.
Once a group of tourists saw a legless war veteran go to the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes. They whispered and asked, “Does he suppose God will give him back his legs?” The veteran overheard the remark. Turning to the tourists he said, “No, I don’t expect God to give me back my legs. I expect him to show me how to live without them.”
Perhaps Lent can help us focus on the right questions to ask. Maybe we can then discover that God is not in the business of bringing pain and suffering into our lives. Rather, he gives us strength to live even in the midst of pain and suffering. Finding the cause of it really doesn’t change anything. But when we center our attention on the results, we are able to redeem even the worst situation. That sounds a lot like Good Friday, doesn’t it?
Make it a great week. clc
Make it a great week. clc
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