Is God Punishing You? Or…

Everyone suffers, the rich no less than the poor, and everyone suffers for the same reason. We suffer because when we broke ourselves by sin, the whole of creation broke as well. There appeared predators and prey. Everything fights to continue to exist. When one thing eats, something else dies.

The default of existence is not universal goodness. They call the jungle the “wild” for a reason. Without man to subdue it, the world is a dangerous place. And before Jesus came to earth to save us, there was obviously no reason to think that the world was basically good. It wasn’t. But how do you explain the prosperity that comes to some and not to others? How do you explain it when everything good seems to be lost?

They say that the book of Job was written before the book of Genesis. Perhaps the question of why bad things happen to good people is more immediate than wondering about how we came to be.

Today Deacon Michael addresses the eternal question of why bad things happen to good people. Bestselling books have been written about this. Because we are Catholic, we know that there is an answer, and most of all, we know that there is hope.

written by Laura Weston, widow of Deacon Michael Weston

IF YOU LIKE, READ ALONG WHILE YOU ARE LISTENING:

In our first reading, from Job, the life of Job alternates. We have Job was a very good man.  God recognized he was a very good man.  And the devil came to God and said, “He really isn't that good.  He's good because everything is going well for him."  Remember good things happen to good men.  "Let's test him a little bit."  And God let him do it.

So you have in Job basically a situation where there is a recognition of Almighty God and how wonderful He is, and then an effort to try to understand why bad things happen to a good man.  And this is the dichotomy that's going on.

And, in part, the gospel reading today from Jesus is a recognition of that.  The recognition is that bad things happen to good people and that ultimately the requirement that we all have is to place God first.  That placing God first is the answer to our salvation.  But in that context, and I talk about this, everything that we receive is a gift from God for our salvation. 

And what does that mean?  Does it mean like when my back hurts that's a gift from God?  That when we are suffering, we suffer a loss, you go, "How in the world can that be a gift from God?”  And it is because, on a very fundamental level, we believe in the Communion of Saints.  Because the Communion of Saints is Heaven and Purgatory. Hell is removing yourself from the Communion of Saints.  The Communion of Saints is Heaven, Purgatory, and then us on the earth. 

What is the thing that you can do?  It is that in Purgatory you suffer punishments for the sins that you committed on Earth, to be cleansed.  Once the cleansing process is finished, you go to Heaven.  At the same time, on Earth, the same thing occurs, that when you are suffering and you combine your suffering with those of Christ on the cross, there is a cleansing effect that brings you closer to God.  So the suffering itself is a means to bring you to holiness and it purges you, just like Purgatory, of the sin. And so it is in that context, when you look at why do bad thing happen to good people, that it is in many senses… I mean, none of us are free of sin. We, all of us, deserve punishment for our sins, but the person who is suffering, the good person suffering, is given the opportunity to take that portion of his or her life and combine it with those of Christ and purge himself from the punishment that is necessary to purify yourself to go to Heaven.  This is where the old expression of, "Offer it up," comes from.  That is the very core of it.

The second aspect of it, and I don't know what your reaction to it is, but Pope Francis irritated a whole bunch of people not too long ago, he is pretty good at that, but he irritated a whole bunch of people when he said that the Devil is getting people to attack the bishops, and it is by the Devil that this is all occurring.  (He is referring to the public accusations of coverup by the bishops of sexual misconduct by priests.)

There is no question in my mind, and that's why we are going to be doing the prayer of St. Michael, that the Devil is at work in the Church.  But see, the problem is, the implication is that the bishops, the hierarchy of the Church, are like Job.  Job was a good man.  Good things happened to Job because he was good, and bad things happened to Job not because of what he did, but because of the Devil.

And many people see that as Pope Francis saying, "Pray to prevent the Devil from attacking the hierarchy of the Church because the hierarchy of the Church are like Job and they didn't do anything wrong.”

So when you hear the outcry against that particular thing, that is at the core of what's going on.  Because he is saying the bishops are being attacked because of the actions of the Devil as opposed to consequences of their own acts. 

All of us are sinners.  All of us will or have sinned. We suffer.  There is punishment for our sin.  And he (the Pope) seems to be divorcing those two.  So when we see someone reacting to these things that Pope Francis talks about, the Devil attacking the Church, particularly the hierarchy, that's why it gets a strong reaction because it goes back to Job, of the good people suffering because the Devil is making other people attack them.  And so, that is the background of that particular thing.  I happen to be a person who, he just drives me crazy when he said that, for that exact reason.

But what it does is it changes your perspective of the world, when you understand that, in fact, there is punishment for sin and that because there is punishment for sin, those punishments that we receive for our sins, when combined with those of Christ on the cross, bring us to sanctification, bring us to Heaven, beyond, or in addition to, our charitable acts. When we love our neighbor and we love God, and do all these positive things, that we say, "Here are my acts."  St. James talks about this.  "You have faith; I will show you the faith behind my actions."

It is in addition. That sanctification doesn't simply come from our acts.  Jesus says you cannot earn Heaven.  By your actions alone, you cannot earn Heaven.  But by your reaction to, and incorporation in all of the things that happen to you in your life, all of your experiences, good, bad, ugly, whatever they are, you bring yourself sanctification because you are not relying on yourself to bring the sanctification, you are relying on God to bring the sanctification.  The sanctification comes through Our Lord, Jesus Christ.  You are doing the positive of combining yourself with Christ, including Christ's suffering.

So this is the issue that we face.  This is an issue that Jesus faces and gives us the answer to.  And it is the issue that I assume we are going to be looking at for probably another week or two when we are reading the book of Job.  That is the context, and the ultimate thing is to come to an understanding and to incorporate in our salvation history itself the fact that bad things, in fact, do happen to good people.

October 2, 2018 2