“And Jesus passing by, saw a man, who was blind from his birth: And his disciples asked him: Rabbi, who hath sinned, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind? Jesus answered: Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him that sent me, whilst it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.
When he had said these things, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and spread the clay upon his eyes, And said to him: Go, wash in the pool of Siloe, which is interpreted, Sent. He went therefore, and washed, and he came seeing.”—John 9: 1-7
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Why do good things happen to bad people? Who committed the sin so that such trial, pain, sadness—and whatever further tribulation and experience might come—should be?
“For the Children.”
“Fuck Everything That You Stand For.”
“Where Is Your God?”
These were messages written on a killer’s rifle magazines. Who scouted, drew diagram, but in the end was too chicken shit to even enter into the sanctuary as he opened fire on school children and elders at morning daily Mass.
“People often ask me what is wrong with the world and also what I do in Gentilly, and I always try to give an answer. The former is an interesting question. I have noticed, however, that no one really wants to listen to an answer.”[i] I read this passage yesterday, as well. We all want to be preachers, announce our proclamations, damnations, and judgment; but no one wants to listen.
Without discourse, true seeking of truth—there is no answer.
Kierkergaard wrote, “What looks like politics, and imagines itself to be political, will one day unmask itself as a religious movement.” Maybe politics in our modern age is the religion of the godless—whichever side that seeks solutions through man and will before discernment and deferral to the greater One True God.
“Where Is Your God?” the killer challenged, prosecuting his/her/they/them/legion’s violence against the innocent.
Today is another day, another day in perpetual renewals—like Baptism, Reconciliation, and Eucharistic Communion which restore us, whatever our sins and errors and wrongs, to innocence and new—to eyes and mind of a child as Jesus told that we must have if ever we are to enter the Kingdom of God.
The killer is dead. But the Church still lives.
This is nothing new.
It happens world-over—still.
The first saints, nearly all, were martyrs. Perhaps it will be same in our present and future times when complacency permits footholds of evils that are not new, but returned when our guard, in complacency, is felled.
People mock prayers for the fallen. “They were praying when they were killed.”
“Yes, so too are most martyrs. Such Faith converts changed hearts.”
This is nothing new.
The killer is dead. But the Church still lives.
Why do good things happen to bad people? Who committed the sin so that such trial, pain, sadness—and whatever further tribulation and experience might come—should be?
These happen so that, through them, God might work his miracles; to show, as the trials and tortures sent to Job, that our Faith is unbroken—even should world ridicule, condemn, and affix to us false-sins—and that God is still God, and We will all see when the miracles of what evil sees as victory is turned upon its head.
“Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him that sent me.” In time, God’s grace and miracle of will show.
Life the Faith. We all are Sent—to be brought from blind to seeing.
This is nothing new.
The Church still lives.
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“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”
[i] Walker Percy. The Moviegoer.