Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church

Homily for February 8, 2009
Liturgical Year B - Cycle I
5th Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Fr. John Carney
 Topic: The question of evil and suffering
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Why do bad things happen to good people? That's a question that's been the topic of innumerable books and innumerable sermons. I've heard a lot of the sermons and read some of the books and I've never gotten a good answer to "Why do bad things happen to good people?".

We all have been faced with questions concerning evil in our lives. The older you are, the more times you have encountered evil. By evil, I mean specifically today, the suffering of the innocent, the great suffering of the truly innocent.

I remember my last assignment in the military before I went to seminary. I was in Illinois and one of the officers in the brigade, his son was killed in an accident. The boy was 11 years of age and his parents had tried to conceive the child for years and years and years. They really wanted a child and they finally conceived him. He was born and he was the apple of their eye, he was their reason for being and at the age of 11, while riding his bicycle, he was struck and killed by a car.

I encountered the father a few weeks after the death. I didn't know him well. It was a kind of a casual acquaintance. He knew I was going to seminary so he asked me, he said, "Why? Where is God in all of this?" And I just put my head down and said, "I don't know, I'm so sorry." I think I had a thought in the back of my head that "Well, I'll get the answer to that question when I go to seminary".

About 10 years ago in my former parish, we had a wonderful family. One morning, the mother was taking her three children to work or she was going to work and taking her three children to daycare and school. You know how that works mothers, dropping them off. They speculate that one of the children dropped the baby bottle and so she undid her seatbelt and leaned over to get the baby bottle, lost control of the SUV, it rolled over and she was killed instantly. The three children were not, thank God, seriously injured. How do you explain that?

Her husband was a good man, but not a man of faith. I tried to pass on my condolences to him, to shake his hand and he wouldn't, he glared at me. During the funeral, he just sat in that front row and glared at me. The only way I can describe his look was of an intense hatred personally because I was speaking for God. This can be a tough job when you have a funeral like that with 800 sets of eyes looking at you, wanting an answer, and I'm as impoverished as you are in terms of the answer.

We all remember 9/11, most of us do. A great example of the suffering of the truly innocent, a great example of evil. Why? Job is a great book written to discuss that question. Job is one of the oldest books in the Bible. It is believed it was written between the 7th and 5th centuries before Christ. It is a didactic poem, a poem that's intended to teach, and if you love literature, you would agree that Job is one of the most splendid works ever written. It's still a classic, a short book, it's only 30 pages in most Bibles, but it's a tremendous book. Imagine it was written in prose and poetry in Hebrew then translated to Greek and then to English, then how many times has it been retranslated. You could only imagine how beautiful it was in its original text.

You know the story. Job is a wealthy chieftain, not in Israel in another foreign land, and he is the richest man in the realm and the most blessed. Everyone looks up to him because of his greatness, and as a test of his faith, he loses everything. He loses all his land, his livestock, and then all of his children are killed. He himself was struck with terrible diseases and pains. One of the images I have of Job and perhaps you have it as well, is Job sitting on a dung heap with the sores of perhaps leprosy, crying out to God. His wife after a while said, "Why don't you just curse God and die." Lovely spousal advice.

His friends came to give him some consolation but they end up turning against him and abandoning him. His friends basically told him, "Look Job, you've obviously done something wrong; you must have done something wrong to deserve this punishment. So why don't you just ask God's forgiveness for your sins". And Job said, "I didn't do anything wrong, I'm innocent", and they said, "That's nonsense" and they turned their back and left him.

Job cursed the day of his birth; he wished he had never been born. Job protested his innocence to God because he doesn't understand and he asked God to respond to his friends. In other words, answer their question, "What have I done wrong?" God's answer is surprising, it's abrupt. He in effect paraphrasing says, "Don't you question me, Job." He doesn't justify his actions to men. He refers only to his own omniscience and power. God answers Job with rhetorical questions. He said, "Have you ever caused the sun to rise? Have you walked the depths of the sea? Have you comprehended the breadth of the earth? You haven't Job and I have."

Job is content with this answer. He recovers his attitude of humility and he is strengthened and his faith is deepened. Job never denied God. The presence of God in his life and especially in his suffering was his passion. God to him was very personal. These wonderful words he spoke "I know that my vindicator lives and that he will at last stand forth upon the earth whom I myself shall see, my own eyes, not in others shall behold him. And from my flesh I shall see God; my inmost being is consumed with longing." Beautifully written.

The Book of Job, like much of Hebrew Scriptures pulls no punches, it's tough. It poses these questions about man and God. Is man an enemy of God by nature? Is God more pleased to destroy than he is to create? Is God only a shear irrational power and nothing more? We hear that. Is justice arbitrary with God? Does he change his mind in what is just from day to day?

Now, all of these ideas are rejected, but the mystery of suffering is not answered. The question of evil is not answered. The author does not offer Job's experience as a way to understand evil but as a way to live with it. I encourage you to read this book. Again, it's short and maybe when you're reading it, you could take some notes and say, "What am I learning here? What are the lessons of Job? I have gleaned five of them."

I mentioned this at the last Mass and there was a note in the sacristy with three additional lessons someone had given me. This is a very conscientious parish. But go home and read Job this week and make notes, and say "What's he saying? What am I learning here"

Here's some lessons I gleaned. First, don't judge the suffering of others. Job's friends show that smug prosperity which leads men to deny the reality of the problem. All is well with them and if all is not well with Job, it must be his fault. Now you'll say, "Well I would never do that to someone suffering" but we do that. Someone has lung cancer, "Well you know she smoked." Or someone has liver troubles or he is dying of AIDS, "well you know." You see we do that as if "I don't have those diseases because I don't do those things." That's the same thing that Job's friends did. Are we to console each other or to judge each other? Job's friends did not console him, they judged him and that has no place in our relationships with each other.

The second lesson is "blessed are those who persevere." Job had stick-to-itiveness. He never gave up, he never quit. I think that's an attitude we all admire, is it not? We love the guy not necessarily who wins the race, but who doesn't quit, who hangs in there and does the best he can.

Saint Theresa said in the Interior Castle, "If you should at times fall, don't become discouraged and stop striving to advance, for even from this fall, God will draw out good."

Third lesson is that only the fool attempts to explain suffering. That's an important lesson I think to us because oftentimes, we know people who have encountered evil, who are in grief. We feel like there should be something that we can say to help them, yes? And we all come up empty and we all think it's our fault, "It's my fault, and I'm just not bright enough."

Oftentimes, people in grief are avoided by their friends because they think, "I don't know what to say so I'm not going to look at her." So, on top of the grief thing, they have this sense of rejection. It's not important what you say, it's important that you be there, that you are present with that person and the words "I'm sorry" mean an awful lot to them.

Other people do give them advice which almost always is wrong. A person who loses a child and someone says "Well, God must have wanted him in heaven." Don't ever say that especially to someone who knows how to throw a good punch. That statement brings on the judgment of God. Only fools attempt to explain suffering.

There's a very interesting story of the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris. I can imagine what a wonderful thrill it is to be selected as Cardinal Archbishop of Paris and Notre Dame is your cathedral. Five months after being made cardinal, he died in 1968 of leukemia and he suffered greatly. Before he died, he said this on his death bed, "We know how to make beautiful speeches about suffering, and I myself have spoken of it with enthusiasm. Tell the priest to say nothing about it. We know nothing about what suffering is, I weep to think of it."

The fourth lesson, "Suffering can lead to a closer relationship with God" and that's really true. The catechism says this "Illness can lead to anguish, self absorption, sometimes even despair and revolt against God. It can also make a person more mature, helping him discern in his life what is not essential so that he can turn toward what is. Very often illness provokes a search for God and return to him."

You know, I would guess there are probably 15 people here right now who have had cancer and have survived and have been cured. If I asked each one of you, were you closer to God after your illness than you were before? I guarantee you that all 15 would say "Yes." You know what I mean. Suffering brings us closer to God in some way we don't know, we can't understand. I think it strips away nonsense and bears what is truly essential.

Lastly, thank goodness, the mystery of suffering begins to be understood only in the light of Jesus Christ. Through Job's suffering, he became closer to God, but through Jesus' suffering, we get closer to God. Jesus' suffering was redemptive and he did it for us. Saint Paul reminds us that we have a choice in our suffering to add it to the suffering of Christ for the redemption of the world.

You know, we have a lot of funerals and I've noticed that in funerals, there's a difference between those with faith and those who have no faith. All are grieved by the loss but people with faith generally have a perspective and sometimes even experience joy for the love one who's lost. People without faith often respond with fear and desperation. We have faith, we have faith that whatever evils, whatever suffering we encounter, Christ will be with us.

"Come to me all you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart and you will find yourselves, for my yoke is easy and my burden light."