God is Master of history

By Fr. Vincent Hawkswell

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A July 10, 2005 First Reading:     Is. 55:10-11 Second Reading:     Rom. 8:18-23 Gospel Reading:     Mt. 13:1-23

“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us,” St. Paul says in this Sunday’s Second Reading.

These words are very apt as some dozen priests of the Vancouver Archdiocese take up new positions this week. I myself am one of them. These priests love the people they have served for the last few years. They are sad to leave them, however much they anticipate loving their new parishioners.

The same goes for the people in the affected parishes. In general, priests are dearly loved by the people. The people are sorry to see them go. Moreover, they are somewhat anxious about the incoming pastor. What will he be like? (The problem is even more acute for those who have been employed in the parish by the previous pastor. Will they remain on the payroll or will they be fired? If they are fired, what can they do instead?)

In spite of all this pain, the priests obey the word of the archbishop, perhaps even without understanding, because they promised obedience to him when they were ordained. Both priests and people accept the new appointments because, in general, they consider that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.”

The problem of evil

The contrast between our present sufferings and our future glory and happiness constitutes what may be called the problem of evil. Briefly stated, the problem is this: God created everything out of love, and all His creation is good, even though it is still “journeying” toward its ultimate perfection. Throughout this journey, God is the sovereign Master of His plan: in His providence, He governs, guides, and protects creation immediately and concretely. In that case, why does evil exist?

First, says the Catechism of the Catholic Church, God’s plan for creation’s journey involves “the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature.” Therefore physical evil, like illness and physical suffering, will exist alongside physical good until the end of the world.

However, there is another kind of evil. Most of the things God has created, like animals and inanimate things, have no choice about their part in His loving plan for creation. They collaborate with Him unconsciously, so to speak. However, God has given two of His creatures, namely angels and humans, the intelligence and the free will necessary to collaborate with Him deliberately: by our actions, our prayers, and our sufferings. Angels and humans can thus be God’s co-workers in a much fuller sense; we can co-operate with Him in the unfolding of His plan.

God does not need our co-operation any more than He needs that of animals or stars. However, not out of weakness, but out of His greatness and goodness, He gives us not only our existence, but also the dignity of acting on our own, of causing things to happen, of truly co-operating in His plan. Apparently He wants us to respond to Him not just because He made us that way, but by our free choice and preference. If you think about it, nothing less deserves to be called love.

We have to be free to decide to love God, but if we are free, we can decide not to love God. Whatever we decide, God accepts our decision. If we reject Him, His plan is not spoiled. We still take part in it, but unconsciously, like a tool He uses, instead of consciously, like a co-worker He consults. The Catechism calls this freedom “a terrible mystery.”

Nothing is wasted

Now, as a matter of history, some angels and humans have decided not to embrace God and His loving plan for creation. In this way moral evil, immeasurably more harmful than physical evil, has also entered God’s creation. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of this evil, the Catechism says. However, He permits it because He respects our freedom.

In this Sunday’s Gospel Reading, it seems that most of the good seeds were wasted. Some fell on the path, where the birds ate them. Others fell on rocky ground, where they had no root and the sun scorched them. Others fell among thorns, which choked them.

However, in the First Reading, we hear that “as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there until they have watered the earth ... so shall My word be that goes out from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose.”

Nothing God does, however difficult to understand or accept, is wasted. His plan is never thwarted, for He is the Master of history. However, the ways of His providence are often hidden from us, the Catechism admits. Not until the end of the world, when we see God “face to face,” will we see the whole of His loving plan and know fully how He has guided His creation to the perfection for which He created it, even through evil and sin.

In the meantime, only faith can “embrace” (not understand) “the mysterious ways of God’s almighty power,” the Catechism says. In fact, Christians glory in their weaknesses, including their blindness, in order to let Christ’s power act through them.