On March 31 of this year, shortly after 2 pm local time, an EF 3 tornado ripped through the city of Little Rock, Arkansas, cutting a path of destruction that also affected the communities of North Little Rock, Sherwood, Jacksonville, and Cabot. A second tornado from the same storm struck the small town of Wynne. According to the National Weather Services, “More than fifty people were injured and admitted to hospitals. Miraculously, only one person was killed.” Four people died in Wynne. Across the mid-United States, storms that night are held responsible for over thirty deaths and property damage estimated in the billions of dollars. The destruct has left a scar in the capital city of Arkansas that will take years to repair, and deeper, less visible scars on those affected that may take longer.
Any time such a disaster strikes, especially so close to home, it’s very natural to ask the question, “Where is God?” A Protestant friend of mine saw the hand of God in the tornado itself. Those who were struck by the tornado, he believed, had received the just punishment of God; they had done something to deserve it. I remember people saying very similar things in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. In a certain sense, I understand my friend’s reaction. As a human being, we long for the world to make sense. As believers, we long for the justice of God to be evident in the world.
But, as much as I understand that position, I find that I can’t share it. I’ve known too many good people who have suffered devastating tragedies through no fault of their own. I cannot believe that there is always a necessary correlation between sin and suffering, at least in this present life. The fact that the Arkansas tornadoes hit the Friday before Palm Sunday and Passion Week should make us stop and think. Jesus Christ is Innocence itself, yet He suffered to an extent that we can scarcely begin to imagine. Seeing Our Lord on the Cross, we should at least hesitate to always see a direct connection between suffering and personal sin.
Whenever this issue of suffering and justice comes up, two events from earlier in Our Lord’s life come to my mind. The first is in the central section of the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus is still on His way to Jerusalem to suffer His Passion. On His journey, He is teaching about the Kingdom of God and performing miracles. At one point, He is told of a group of Galileans that the Roman authorities had killed. It’s worth considering His response in full:
Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered thus? I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, No; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. (Lk 13:2-5)
When confronted with two tragedies, Our Lord does not condemn those who suffered but instead uses what happened as an opportunity to call His listeners to repentance. None of us know when we will die. Let us make use of the time we have.
The other passage is in the Gospel of John. Jesus is in Jerusalem with His disciples, and they come upon a man blind since birth. The disciples ask him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (Jn 9:2) Many Jews in Jesus’ day were like my Protestant friend, interpreting a misfortune as a direct result of personal sin, either one’s own or a consequence of sin handed down through a family line.
You know the story; you know how Jesus responds to the disciples’ question. “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him.” (Jn 9:3) Our Lord’s focus again is not on judging the blind man or his family but on healing him. He heals him in a very tactile fashion, using his spittle to create mud that he smears on the man’s eyes and then sending him to wash in the pool of Siloam. (Perhaps the Holy Spirit is using the name to link our two Gospel accounts?) The man not only is healed but because of his healing comes to a deep understanding of who Jesus is: the Light of the world.
The man’s blindness leads to his healing, which leads to the revelation of the glory of God in Christ Jesus.
Any time tragedies happen, especially when they happen to good people, believers are confronted with a difficult question—perhaps the most difficult question out there—the problem of evil. Why does an all-powerful and all-loving God permit bad things to happen? People who are suffering deserve more than a quick and glib answer. The Catechism of the Catholic Church has very valuable words on this matter:
If God the Father almighty, the Creator of the ordered and good world, cares for all his creatures, why does evil exist? To this question, as pressing as it is unavoidable and as painful as it is mysterious, no quick answer will suffice. Only Christian faith as a whole constitutes the answer to this question…There is not a single aspect of the Christian message that is not in part an answer to the question of evil. (CCC 309, emphasis in original)
Let’s turn again to the question, Where was God when the tornadoes hit Arkansas on March 31? I can only give witness to what I saw. Before the sun set that day, I heard reports of churches, Catholic and not, offering immediate assistance to those affected. Lenten fish fries gave away food for free until they ran out of supplies. The weekly newspaper of the diocese of Little Rock, The Arkansas Catholic, reports that the Christ the King parish, nearest to one of the areas hit the hardest, set up a donation station for those affected the day after. Bishop Anthony Taylor, the bishop of Little Rock, whose territory includes the entire state of Arkansas, lifted the Friday abstinence on Good Friday for those assisting in the cleanup, rightly considering that such an act of mercy could replace abstaining from meat. Bishop Taylor also set up a special collection throughout his diocese for those affected by the tornadoes, the collection taken up on Divine Mercy Sunday.
Where was God in the tornadoes? He was there, in all of the good people, Catholic and not, showing their solidarity with those who suffered. I see the faces of those who have received help, I see those whose faith was shaken by what they lost but not overcome, and I know that God was there, in the midst of the storm.
Perhaps, in the end, my Protestant friend is right, but not in the sense that he meant. Perhaps natural disasters are the judgment of God—not on those who suffer them, but on us who are safe in our homes. Will we sit back and do nothing? Or will we have the courage and love to be the mercy of God to those who are suffering? We are the ones being judged…
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“I tell you, No; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. (Lk 13:2-5)”
In the Second Secret of Fatima, God offered the Catholic Church peace rather than WWII. If two billion Christians would have repented, or made a good effort to repent and call for repentance of others, and if Catholic Leaders would have properly consecrated Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, we would have had no WWII, Jewish Holocaust, Russian menace of today, or impending great chastisement. We chose not to repent or call for people to repent, so God punished the world as a whole, by not granting us peace from WWII. Ask yourself, when was the last time Pope Francis told us to repent from our sins, in order for God to stop punishing us with wars?
In the Book of Job, God has answered our question as to why good people suffer. The Book of Job is an allegory about the Rise, Fall and Restoration of Israel. In the Promised Land it was, pretty much, more like you would think it should be, where sinners suffer for their sins. After a battle, it was only Israelite soldiers who wore pagan good luck charms under their garment who were slain in battle. Miriam sinned and immediately turned into a leper. Moses begged God to heal her and she was healed. Then, because of the massive sinfulness of Israel, God exiled Israel out of the Promised Land, removed His Presence from the temple in Jerusalem, divorced Israel, relinquished His Kingship over Israel and placed secular world dominant power as king and rulers over Israel. King Nebuchadnezzar was just as ruthless as Adolph Hitler.
The story of the Martyrdom of a Mother and Her Seven Sons, gives us a good picture of Job, as Fallen Israel, suffering for the massive sins of the world. Jesus has not Second Coming, Come to earth yet, so we are right there in the mix of Fallen Israel, with the mother and her seven sons, as well as Job in his misery.
The Book of Job
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/job/1
2 Maccabees 7 Martyrdom of a Mother and Her Seven Sons.
“18: After him they brought the sixth brother. When he was about to die, he said: “Have no vain illusions. We suffer these things on our own account, because we have sinned against our God; that is why such shocking things have happened.”
“38: Through me and my brothers, may there be an end to the wrath of the Almighty that has justly fallen on our whole nation.” At that, the king became enraged and treated him even worse than the others, since he bitterly resented the boy’s contempt. Thus he too died undefiled, putting all his trust in the Lord. Last of all, after her sons, the mother was put to death.”
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/2maccabees/7
But Jesus is now, according to locutions, Second Coming, coming soon to deliver Job, Israel, the Catholic Church and the world, from “the evil one”, which, ‘the evil one’ means world dominant secular power. Jesus will Rule on earth with and through His Church, the Catholic Church, in the Restored Kingdom of Israel.
Acts of the Apostles 1:6 The Ascension of Jesus.
When they had gathered together they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He answered them, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority. But you will receive power when the holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.
John 17:15 Prayer of Jesus
I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one.
Matthew 6:9 The Lord’s Prayer
…your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven …//… Subject us not to trial but deliver us from the evil one.’
Acts of the Apostles 26:17
I shall deliver you from this people and from the Gentiles to whom I send you, to open their eyes that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may obtain forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been consecrated by faith in me.
The price one MUST pay to have real Love, to go to a real heaven, and to bear the image of God IS CONSEQUENTIAL CHOICE. If we seek to eliminate the bad consequences of the choices mankind has made we eliminate all the good consequences as well. God obviously believes that the good made available to us outweighs the inevitable bad we are exposed to.
When I broke both of my arms last year in an automobile incident, I saw the presence of God in the responses of the people who surrounded me. I actually wrote about it just recently (https://www.ncregister.com/blog/lessons-in-suffering-after-cycling-accident).
Looking back, even though what I experienced was painful in a myriad of ways, the potential for growth was huge. It didn’t just affect me. Such things never do. The potential that can be brought about by a tragedy like the one you describe is impossible to comprehend. Mostly though, I am reminded of how we ought to respond to people when they are in the midst of crisis. When people are struggling with whatever trials they face, the important thing is to offer compassion in the truest sense. We may not always be able to help to fix the grief or pain or whatever ails the person, but we can join with them and not abandon them. Compassion comes from cum passio — to suffer with. We can and should always be with them. It sometimes feels inadequate, but it can mean everything to the person who is suffering.
This story focuses on natural disasters. God doesn’t typically prevent natural evils. That would require a miracle.
But moral evil is a different story. God should be seen through the justice system and those who agree with its just decisions.