Why do the innocent suffer? Why are there genetic defects in newborn children? Why have so many died before they had a chance to live? If God is good, why is there so much that seems un-good? The dying one who shouldn’t be dying is always the acid test for our faith. What happens when life doesn’t work? Why did so many die on every side of every war, as 65 years ago today in Nagasaki?
Sooner or later we all have to deal with the issue of unjust suffering, since it exists at every level of creation: substances, plants, animals, and humans—and maybe even God. Could God suffer? Even with us, in us, and through us?
Yes, if Jesus is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15)—and God is never more nakedly revealed than on the cross (1 Corinthians 1:2-31)—then we have to admit that our suffering is somehow one with God’s eternal suffering that is birthing the new creation (Romans 8:18-23). We are “making up in our bodies all that still has to be undergone by Christ for the sake of his body” (Colossians 1:24).
Richard Rohr, August 2010
We must not minimise to ourselves what Rohr is saying here; whether or not we agree with his conclusion, it is utterly essential that we come to a conclusion for ourselves, faced with the horror of what was done in 1945, and what has been done, somewhere, on every day since. Without facing this, how can we pray?
2 comments:
I have always disliked that phrase the nuns always said to us: "Offer it up, girls, for the souls in purgatory (or whatever)" It is as if God liked receiving our pain. Due to sin and bad choices of our free will, there will always be pain and suffering. To do away with pain, one would have to do away with free will, which I do not believe God would do. The only way to dignify suffering would be to give it some salvific nature. Jesus embraced all the suffering of humankind, including what you and I and the people of Nagasaki underwent. It was all pinned to the Cross. Only in Jesus' identification with us in our feeble humanity, accomplished through Divine Love, does pain have any dignity or meaning or value. We do not so much offer it up, as Christ takes it on in His compassionate mercy. Atleast that is how I see it.
Thank you, Barbara.
"Christ takes it on in His compassionate mercy..." Oh, absolutely! That is the heart of it, and why I just keep returning to the Jesus Prayer, always...
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