THROUGH UNTRUE
Fr. Rolando V. dela Rosa, O.P.
It's a bit absurd that people who seldom think about God suddenly remember Him when tragedy strikes. Often, they think of God because they need someone to blame. They say: "You could have prevented this, but You did not. If You don't help me now, I will cease to believe in You."Many people lose their faith that way. Their disappointment with God leads them to despair.
For instance, during this time of the pandemic, many are disappointed because God seems unwilling to intervene. They ask: "In the Bible, Jesus even performed miracles to alleviate the suffering of people. Why doesn't He do this now?" True, Jesus performed miracles before the unbelieving Jews. But if you noticed, He did not do these very often. He wanted them to believe in Him, not in what He would do for them.
That's perhaps why, in today's gospel, Jesus narrated the parable of the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16). We wrongly see our relationship with God as a contractual agreement. If we do something for Him, then He must do something for us. Our decision to believe in Jesus obliges Him to help us when we are in need. When He does not act that way, we feel we are shortchanged. And we complain: "That's not fair!"
Life on earth is full of unfair circumstances, tragedies, and injustices. But God's existence and His love for us should not depend on the way He handles these. It would have been easy for God to use His power to make our life problem-free. But that is not the way He chose to deal with suffering and unfairness.
I remember, after his assassination, the body of Ninoy Aquino lay in state at the Santo Domingo Church for nine days. His relatives made no effort to disguise the bullet wound that had disfigured his face. His mother Doña Aurora told the funeral home not to embalm nor apply makeup on the body, so that the public may see "what they did to my son."
She wanted Ninoy's mangled body to be the strongest protest imaginable against the perpetrators of that heinous crime. It displayed unfairness for what it was – Grotesque, cruel, and despicable. In him, we saw death as a sacrifice that could make sense of the unfairness that envelops our world.
That was what God did on Calvary. The cross that held Christ's body, naked, wounded, and bleeding, exposed all the unfairness in the world. God could have delivered Jesus from suffering and death, but God chose not to intervene. Philip Yancey wrote: "God showed us that there is no way out of the unfairness of life, but there is a way THROUGH it. That is why there is an Easter Sunday after Good Friday."
Now, this doesn't mean that we should just assume the attitude of passive resignation or indifference to our own suffering and that of others. We must do something to alleviate it. But our more basic task is to derive meaning from our misery, to make sense of our experience of unfairness in order to rise from despair to a higher level of spiritual maturity and deeper faith. As Friedrich Nietzche declares, "he who has a WHY can bear almost any HOW."
So, does life seem unfair to you? I invite you to kneel, feel, and be healed by this prayer: "Lord, I grope for meaning and hope in a world swamped by grief and unfairness. Forgive me for sometimes putting You on trial. Forgive me for my lack of confidence in Your goodness. Help me believe that joy lies cheek to cheek with the deepest sorrow, and I can never appreciate one without experiencing the other. Amen."