Why, why, why

We are stunned by the horrific evil.  We are devastated by the loss of so many innocent lives.  We are frightened by our fragility.  We are frustrated by our impotence to control the seeming randomness of our lives.  Why has this happened to us?  My God, my God, why have you abandoned us?

God, if you are all-loving, how could you let this happen to us who are your beloved children?  If you are all-powerful, why didn't you use your power to prevent this evil?  If you are all-benevolent, why did you not want to protect us from this horror?   Why, why, why?

There are many who ask these questions and lose all faith in God.  They feel that a God who would allow such things to happen cannot be a God worth having at all.  And I would agree with them completely.  God would never allow, never condone, and would never use such evil for any purpose at all.  Our God is not some divine puppet master, pulling the strings that cause our world to go round, tugging us this way and that, controlling our every move, our every moment.

We ask why God cannot do more for us by protecting us from such evil, but He has already done what He can – and it is more than enough.

First, He has created each one of us out of love in his own image and likeness, vesting us with the capability to love as he loves, to look beyond our selfish interests to the needs of others.  He has also given us free will, as love cannot exist without it, for Christian love is a choice, the desire and the will to work for the best of the other.  We choose love and life when we choose to include God in our lives.  We choose hatred and death when we choose to exclude God from our lives.

Evil is not a physical thing.  It only exists in an absence.  It only exists in the absence of God.  It is overcome and conquered by the presence of God.

As I looked around the church on Friday night as two thousand people gathered to celebrate a vigil Mass, many of them huddled outside the open windows of the church that could hold less than half their number, as I looked out at one overflowing congregation after another on Sunday morning, even as we were being forced to evacuate the noon Mass due to more threats of violence, I remembered the words of St. Peter as he stood on the mount of Transfiguration, “Lord, it is good that we are here.”  For in God’s presence, evil has no power.  And nowhere are we more present to God than gathered together at Mass.

For God not only created us out of love in his image and likeness, he so loved the world that, as we will soon celebrate on Christmas Day, he gave his only Son to reveal himself to us in a most perfect way, to be present to us in a most personal way, and to show us, though his life, his death, and his resurrection, and his gift of himself in the Eucharist, the way back to God, the way back to joy, to peace, to love.

To complete His work, God sends us his Spirit, filling us with the power and grace of God, gifting us with all the strength that we need to stay present to God, to be present to each other, to make God’s kingdom present to all of God’s creation, to conquer hatred with love, evil with good, and death with life.

It is only by God’s love that we have life; it is only with God’s mercy that we are saved; and it is only in God’s spirit that we are strong.

Lord, it is good that we are here.