Love is Pain. Anyone who says different is selling something (February 10 2008)

One of the big questions that always comes up in people’s lives is “how can a loving God allow all this suffering?” For many, this one question can drive them away from the Church for a long time, maybe even their whole lives. If God really loves me, why does he let all these terrible things happen? This is a toughie. What it really boils down to is Love, hence my quote from The Princess Bride that I used above. One of the primary components of love is free will. You cannot force someone to love you, not with a real love. Because God loves us, he gives us the option of loving him in return. We are made out of love, and we are made for love. But since love is a choice, we always have the ability and the option to choose an unloving option in any given situation. This option is called sin. Pain and suffering are not a result of God’s failure to love us, but rather in our failure to love God. Because we can be relatively certain that everyone is not going to have a conversion tomorrow, the question now becomes, what do I do with the suffering in my life. I have often said that I would have no problem with outright martyrdom for the faith. If someone wants to shoot me in the face for being Catholic, go right ahead. Where I tend to get a bit more reluctant is when we cross over from a quick and painless death for my faith into the realm of suffering and maybe even torture. Pain and I, we don’t generally mix willingly. Is this a bad thing? Well, that depends on your point of view. If you view pain as something which is intrinsically evil and must be avoided at all costs, then you might want to rethink your faith and read through the Gospels. Many people believe in the old Health and Wealth Gospel, which pretty much says that as long as you follow Christ and avoid sin, you will live a long, healthy and prosperous life. If you are poor or suffering, then it must be because of sin in your life. This is primarily a Protestant view of Christianity. As Catholics we see much more value in suffering. We are called at all times to try to imitate the life of Christ, and Christ did some pretty hard core suffering. This was not because of sin on his part, he was perfect. It was something that he did not deserve, but he took it on willing. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t justice, it was a sacrifice. This is what we are also called to. We are called to endure suffering and injustice and to join our sufferings with those of Christ. This is what Fr. Tom is talking about when he tells us to “offer it up” We do not do this in an effort to avoid suffering, but rather to give our suffering some meaning. This is especially powerful when we could get out of the suffering, but willingly choose to keep it and offer it up as a prayer. Just something for you to think about during your fasting this Lent