hey all.. it’s me again with another encyclical haha. God has just been putting so much on my heart lately that I can’t help sharing it with you all!
as you may know, I’m going down to Haiti in a few weeks with 20 students from Franciscan. it’s been all I can think about (more than usual haha), and as I’ve been trying to prepare myself for the devastation I’m going to see down there a few things have kept coming up in my mind. why did the earthquake have to happen? Why did all those people have to suffer so much? Couldn’t God have stopped it from happening? Thank God our God is a loving God, for He has patiently helped me answer these questions and given me so many little revelations that my heart is bursting with gratitude.
Evil does not come from God. It can’t. it’s impossible. Yes, he can allow it to happen, but it does not originate from Him. It originates from our sin and from the harmful effects it has on our brothers and sisters around the world. it comes from the Evil One who has temporary “control” of this world, but who will not prevail. How can God allow evil things to happen though, you may ask, and still be an all-good God? Well, He promises us that where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. He has the power to take an evil situation and turn it into an opportunity for growth, healing, and love. Being all-good doesn’t necessarily equate to no suffering..it means that God knows what’s best for us and will only do that. Remember He is all-knowing as well. It is like a parent trying to teach a kid to ride a bike. The kid is going to fall a few times and may get hurt, but the parent knows in His wise mind that if he holds on to the bike the whole time and never lets go then his kid will never learn to ride. God is like the wise parent. He knows that through suffering we will stretch our spiritual muscles, so to speak, and will gain eternal life by our faith in times of darkness. So our suffering is not a justification for saying that God does not exist or that he is not all-good, because in the long run He is doing us a favor by helping us to gain eternal life.
How, then, can God also be all-powerful if He doesn’t step in and intervene when He has the power to do so? This is because He respects His creation. He made us with free-will, in our rational minds, and in this way we are in His image and likeness. It would be a contradiction for Him to make us in this way and then not respect it by completely controlling our world, and God cannot contradict Himself (thank you, metaphysics class!) therefore, as much as it pains Him to see, He allows us to live with the consequences of our free actions and decisions. If God just completely controlled our minds so that we acted and loved as He wants us to, then we would be robots and wouldn’t choose freely to love Him. What would you rather have, a spouse or child who was programmed to love you and didn’t think twice about it, or someone who freely chose you over all the other people in the world out of his own free will? I know I would take the latter. He is calling us to “accept hardship and suffering and to not blame God. To tell ourselves that hardship and suffering is an opportunity to give loyalty and faith to God the Father.”
How different would the earthquake in Haiti have been if we had all shared our wealth with everyone? If instead of crappy cement and huts the Haitians were living in reinforced houses mean to withstand earthquakes? If instead of spending every waking moment concentrating on trying to stay alive and feed your children, people had the time and money to try and build up their government? Things would have been a lot different. There would not have been a catastrophic loss of life. Well, you may ask, what does this have to do with me? Doesn’t God decide who’s poor and who’s rich? No. God has provided enough resources on this earth to feed, clothe, and house every person on earth. It is us humans, with our free will, who decide to keep more than we need and create a disproportion of goods. And what if the person made by God to prevent this or lessen its impact was aborted as a baby or did not hear God’s call to serve because he/she was too busy being distracted with the things of this world? God does not cause evil. It is our own doing.
It makes me sick to my stomach when I see humungous houses the size of a small hotel built for only 2 or 3 people, knowing that there’s a dozen people somewhere else in the world trying to cram into a hut or shack to keep out of the rain or cold. Or all of the millions of homeless people in the world without a bed to sleep in. It makes me sick thinking of all the food that restaurants throw out every night when somewhere else in the world children are dying from starvation. It makes me sick to see stores full of fancy clothes for people to buy to cram into their bulging closet, when there are people around the world who have only one outfit to wear until it falls apart. I am guilty of all of these things. I am not perfect. But I am trying my best to be aware of this gross gluttony that we have in the more developed nations and try to reduce my share in it. Instead of living like this, try downsizing your home. Try buying only as much groceries as you actually need. Try not to buy that really cute shirt when you know you already have a closet full of shirts that you never wear. Take the things that you don’t use and give them to the people in your community who need them. Take the money that you save and give it to a charity. You will be so much happier and feel more fulfilled when you fill your life with acts of mercy than with material possessions. Our hearts are restless until they rest in God. If we all do our small part, we can eradicate world hunger and poverty without a huge effort. This will also bring about a greater peace around the world. It just takes a willingness to share.
Jesus, in a message given to Anne a Lay Apostle in Volume 1, says “Children, it is not I who have brought this darkness over the world. It is you, by your sin and failure to serve. There is enough food in the world. There should not be hunger. Medical care, also, can be spread around in a more effective manner. Humanitarian assistance to your poor and less advanced societies is an act of mercy and those who practice it are following My will, whether they know it or not. Truly, I want these acts of mercy from you. And I want you to stop blaming your God for your failures.”
And again in Volume 4, God the Father says “I want to share My view with you. From heaven, where I monitored the fall of every leaf, I saw a world that was unbalanced. Some of My children had every possible earthly possession. Because of the abundance of such possessions, My children in some parts of the world began to think in a distorted way. They thought then that they were entitled to such riches. When they could not secure the riches they admired, they began to think they were deprived. My children in the more affluent areas of the world experienced this occurrence and their unhappiness and dissatisfaction led to all manner of spiritual decay. My heavenly view shifts for a moment and I gaze upon other areas of the world, where during this same time, children lay dying of starvation and disease, simply for the want of basic necessities. These are the two extremes. They are equally disturbing to Me because I neither created one group to be gluttonous or the other to live and die in misery. Children, were you the father of this group of individuals, what would you do? You would, like Me, say, “Enough. We must restructure. The Father’s riches must be more equitably distributed.”
I think there has been so many disasters and earthquakes around the world lately because God is trying to tell us something. He is trying to show us His power, His might. He can truly move the mountains. He has command over the winds and the sea. He wants us to recognize that and give Him due reverence. We have gotten into the mindset that we don’t need God, that we are powerful enough on our own to control our lives and the world. He wants to beat us off of this fake pedestal and show us who is really in charge. That we are tiny and insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe. But, amazingly, He loves us more than any other creature in the universe. And He wants us to love our neighbor just as He loves us, to share with them so that nothing like the Haiti earthquake ever happens again.
Mari, Manman Tout Ti Moun, priye pou nou <3
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