14
Faith & Life
Sr Wendy Ooi, fsp, ponders on the
mystery of a good and all-powerful
God in a seemingly cruel world.
WHEN
BAD
THINGS
HAPPEN
HOME-grown stories like the Zheng family published
in The Sunday Times of July 18, 2004 sometimes make
us wonder where God is in these situations. In this story
by Wong Kim Hoh, Corina Zheng has lost five siblings
where is God?
to the same disease that has now paralysed her. But
neither she nor her mother who tends to her complain.
THE very first time I was
moved to seriously
contemplate human suffering
and ponder where God was
in the midst of it took place
about 20 years ago.
It was the mid 1980s and
Ethiopia was encountering
its worst ever famine. I was
a college student then and I
SEVENTY-year-old Arani Ardja Maniss waits in remember watching on
line in early June for her family’s food ration in the television the bloated bellies
Iridimi camp, along the Chad-Sudan border. The of children and skeleton-like
United Nations says fighting between Arab Janjaweed adults, barely surviving, and
militias and African rebels in Darfur, western Sudan, thousands of others starving
has killed some 30,000 people and created the world’s to death.
worst current humanitarian crisis, with 1 million I asked myself, if God is
truly a loving God, why does
people forced to flee their homes. Amnesty
he allow so much suffering.
International accused the Sudanese army and Arab
I’m not sure if I have
militias of using rape as a deliberate weapon against
found the answer to that
black Sudanese girls as young as 8. Girls have also
question, or ever will. But it’s
been abducted as sexual slaves. Pope John Paul II a question that recurs as the
called for greater protection of the people there and world encounters tragedies of
sent a special Vatican envoy to the region. CNS photo varied forms and proportions
– the Rwanda genocide,
September 11, the Bali
bombing, Iraq, and those
closer to our homes and
hearts like the Sars outbreak,
the Nicoll Highway collapse,
murders, fatal road accidents
and the long and cruel cancer
endured and eventually
succumbed by a loved one.
Some tragedies, like the
Ethiopian famine, are natural
calamities. Yet, I remember,
at the time of the crisis
Europe was “suffering” from
a massive surplus of butter,
beef and grain, mountains of
grain! It only showed so
clearly that the Ethiopian
problem could have been
avoided if there was a just
distribution of the world’s
goods.
Indeed much of the
world’s woes seem to stem
from evil manifested in
selfishness, injustice and
anger. These perhaps are
ultimately rooted in fear,
A FATHER comforts his severely burned son at a which breeds in the absence
hospital in Kumbakonam, in southern India, July 16. of God in one’s life.
At least 80 children died and more than 100 were One of my favourite
injured when a fire swept through a private school. spiritual writers, Caryll
Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the pope Houselander, provides some
was “particularly struck by this tragedy.” The spokesman insights to the question of
said the pope offered prayers for the victims. CNS photo
reconciling a good God and
a seemingly cruel world.
For her, the mystery of
suffering is connected with
the mystery of sin. Christ
did not obliterate suffering
when he came into the world
but brought love and
meaning to it. He changed
our suffering into his
passion, making it
meaningful and fruitful.
Through him, our suffering
became redemptive.
“(Suffering) is then not
an evil to be avoided, but a
IRAQI family surrounds a man who was injured in
a suspected suicide car bomb attack in Baghdad
July 14 which killed more than 10 people. CNS photo
thing to be accepted
willingly, even joyfully, as a
means to sharing in the
redemption of the world.”
Perhaps what is beautiful
and redemptive about the
tragedies that take place is
that transformation occurs to
those who witness these
tragedies, and eventually
also for those who suffer
directly and survive them.
Tragedies and suffering
evoke goodness and
generous love in others.
The Ethiopian crisis led
to Band Aid, a group of pop
stars in the U.K. who
recorded a single, “Feed the
World,” which became a
number one hit and raised
Sundays August 1 and August 8, 2004 ■ CatholicNews
millions for the famine
victims. This subsequently
inspired USA for Africa, the
US based group of pop stars,
to record “We Are the
World,” and eventually to
Live Aid, a pop concert
which took place
simultaneously in Wembley,
England and the JFK
stadium in Philadephia,
USA. Altogether, more than
100 million pounds was
raised for Ethiopia.
We have also seen the
heroes and heroines of the
tragic 9/11 event, and our
own Singaporean martyrs
from the Sars outbreak and
the Nicoll Highway incident.
I’d like to think that
Christ was acting in each of
these heroes and heroines
too. But even more, with
faith, we are led to believe
that Christ was also in each
suffering brother and sister,
and also in each of us as we
grapple with our own
personal disasters and
suffering.
Richard Rohr, another
personal favourite writer,
states, “God is not merely
tolerating human suffering
or healing suffering. God is
participating with us in it,
BANGLADESHI
villagers watch as flood
waters erode a portion of
highway in Sunamganj,
Bangladesh, July 13.
Annual monsoon rains
have caused flooding in
the Asian subcontinent,
taking human and
animal lives, submerging
road and rail links,
destroying homes and
farms. CNS photo
not just looking on. That is
what gives believers
meaning and hope. This
suffering is even life-giving
and redemptive. God is
omnipotent, infinite, perfect
yet the suffering Jesus is the
image and revelation of the
invisible God.”
Many disasters have
come and gone since the
Ethiopian crisis. Though I
still may not have adequate
answers to the question of
God’s role in tragedies and
suffering, I have at least
some perspective,
understanding and hope to
live with the question. And I
pray to grow in my Christian
attitude towards suffering, as
lived by one of my heroes,
Blessed Pier Giorgio
Frassati.
“You ask me whether I
am in good spirits,” he
wrote to his sister in 1925.
“How could I not be, so long
as my trust in God gives me
strength. We must always be
cheerful. Sadness should be
banished from all Christian
souls. For suffering is a far
different thing from sadness,
which is the worst disease of
all. It is almost always
caused by lack of Faith. But
the purpose for which we
have been created shows us
the path along which we
should go, perhaps strewn
with many thorns, but not a
sad path. Even in the midst
of intense suffering it is one
of joy”. ■ CNS