2nd Sunday of Lent 2023

Alex Murdaugh, a prominent South Carolina attorney, was found guilty of the murder of his wife and son this week. It was a bizarre case involving Murdaugh’s expensive drug habit, embezzlement from his law firm, and theft from his clients. Prosecutors presented the theory that Murdaugh, faced with being disgraced by his crimes, committed the murders to gain a life insurance settlement for the benefit of his older son. Psychologists label the crime a case of family annihilation syndrome. This case and several similar instances in our surrounding area of parents killing their children and a husband killing his wife leave us shocked. We wonder how someone can murder the people closest to them. It doesn’t make sense, and we can wonder how God can allow such things to happen.  

Last week I began a series of homilies on the theme, “When God doesn’t make sense.” Over the weeks of Lent, I’ll examine with you this topic, to help us explore why God allows evil in our world.  

Last week I told you that Scripture tells us the existence of evil in our world wasn’t part of God’s original plan for creation. God did not intend for us to have to choose between good and evil. God wanted humankind to know only good. But a generous God also gave our first parents the gift of free will. That is the ability to accept or reject God’s guidance. He planted the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the Garden of Eden but warned Adam and Eve not to eat its fruit. The cunning serpent sowed doubt in the minds of Adam and Eve, and they questioned God’s goodness and disobeyed God’s desire for them by eating that tree’s fruit. As a result, evil and death entered the world, and humankind needed to decide whether to follow good or commit evil.  

I offered three principles we need to understand why God does not always make sense to us. The first one is, “It makes sense that God doesn’t make sense.” God is eternal, all-wise, and all-knowing. God sees the big picture. Humans have only existed for maybe a few tens of thousands of years. Earth has been around for much longer than humans, and still, the earth is relatively young compared to the universe. Despite humans being able to grow in knowledge and wisdom, we only perceive existence through a tiny window.  

Next, we must understand that there is a difference between God not making sense and the world not making sense. Not everything evil is God’s will. Sometimes God does things that don’t make sense to us, but it wasn’t God’s will for a train carrying hazardous chemicals to derail in E. Palestine. OH, or for buildings to crumble in an earthquake in Turkey and Syria. It is not God’s will for a hurricane to destroy homes built on a barrier beach.  

In the prayer the Our Father, we recite, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” In that prayer, we recognize much of our world’s sorrow results from our sinfulness. Corporate greed, graft, corner-cutting, and poor planning cause much of our misery. Much of our suffering isn’t attributable to acts of God but to acts of humanity. In our hearts, we recognize our sinfulness is the cause of much of our suffering.  

God wants all things to work together for the good of those who love him. We could reverse all the evil in our world right now if we followed God’s will. Theologians propose there is God’s preferred will, God’s desire that we experience only good, and God’s permissible will, that allows humans to exercise free will. We might ask, why did God give us free will? God allows us to have free will because that is the only way to love as God loves. Free will allows us to decide to make the sacrifice to love truly. God exercised great love by creating the world. God gained nothing from creation. Human beings don’t make God feel any more complete or increase God’s happiness. It was a sacrifice for God to create the world and us out of perfect love. We imitate God’s perfect love by exercising our free will to choose good.  

The third principle is that God is so immense we can’t completely know God. Scripture and the Sacraments reveal a little about God, but we can’t know God’s mind or reasoning. A part of God that He wants us to understand completely is His heart, and that was the reason God sent Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, into the world. Jesus completely revealed God the Father’s compassion, forgiveness, and mercy. While we can’t understand all there is to God, we can understand God’s heart filled with love.  

Many Catholics know much about God from attending Catholic schools or participating in Religious Education Programs, but they don’t know God. They don’t have a relationship with God through prayer. When suffering and hardship come their way, it doesn’t seem to make sense, and they reject God. Yes, we can use reason to know God, but first, we must have a heartfelt relationship with God. 

Today, I want to examine why God allows suffering and death. We all have experienced a death or loss that doesn’t make sense. It may have been a child or someone we saw who had great potential but died young. Many people come to mind. An example is Bl. Carlo Acutis. Carlo was a young teenage Italian boy who died of leukemia back in 2015 at the age of fifteen. He was born to parents who weren’t particularly religious. They baptized Carlo but did it more for cultural than religious reasons. However, Carlo’s nanny was a Polish woman with deep faith. When they went for a walk, she would take Carlo to a church to pray and explain the Eucharist. As he grew, Carlo became a happy and well-adjusted child. He enjoyed sports and other youthful activities and developed a reputation for kindness toward others. He also learned a great deal about computers and computer programing.  

Carlo also developed a great love for the Eucharist and used his computer skills to build a website that gathered information about Eucharistic miracles from throughout history and the world. Carlo became an expert on Eucharistic miracles. We would believe it rational for God to protect a young person like Carlo and use him to spread the gospel and love of the Eucharist into old age. But at fourteen, Carlo developed cancer that would take his life within a year. Carlo didn’t give into fear or sorrow in his suffering but embraced it.  

Today, our faith tells us how suffering and death can make sense. Our Gospel passage is the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration. To understand it, we must go back six days before it happened, when Jesus and the apostles were in the city of Caesarea Phillipi. Jesus asked them, “Who do people say that I am?” Peter firmly responded, “the Son of the Living God.” For witnessing his belief that Jesus was the Messiah, Jesus promised Peter would be the rock on which Jesus would build the Church.  

He then tells them that He is about to go up to Jerusalem to suffer and die at the hands of the religious authorities. Peter and the other apostles all react by pledging they will never let that happen.  

In reaction, we hear today that Jesus took Peter, James, and John, the inner circle of the band of apostles, up a mountain to shed light on what He had told them. He wants to show the three that while God will allow the suffering and pain of Jesus’ passion and death, it will end in glory. 

While on the mountain, God transfigures Jesus, making His clothing dazzling white to show His glory. Moses and Elijah, symbolizing the Law and the Prophets come to affirm Jesus’ divinity. Recalling Jesus’ statement telling the apostles that He would shortly undergo a humiliating death, Peter wants to stay on the mountain. He wants to dissuade Jesus from His journey to Jerusalem and continue this spiritual high he was experiencing by setting up tents to stay on the mountaintop. A cloud comes up quickly, and the voice of God tells Peter and the other two apostles to listen to Jesus. In other words, God tells the three apostles to accept Jesus’ prediction about His death and to embrace the sorrow they will feel because glory is on the other side.  

The prediction of Jesus’ humiliating death doesn’t make sense to the apostles. Their understanding of the role of the Messiah is to be a leader who will rally the people, destroy their oppressors, and establish Israel as a great nation under God’s rule. It doesn’t include suffering and sacrifice.  

Despite this Transfiguration experience, the apostles can’t imagine Jesus’ prediction. They feel things are getting stranger and stranger. They follow Jesus because of the crowds and their belief he would soon become the King. They can’t imagine Jesus dying on the cross and then rising from the dead. It was so far-fetched to them that none of them kept vigil by Jesus’ tomb after He died. They all ran off to hide in the Upper Room. Fear and sorrow overcame them because they believed Jesus was over and done forever.   

The Transfiguration was God’s way of showing that He would restore eternal life through suffering and pain. Jesus experiences exultation because He is willing to be obedient to the Father. Jesus will reverse Original Sin and restore our opportunity to experience eternal life. Death isn’t the last word because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, and life wins. 

Today, Jesus will reenact His sacrifice on the cross here on the altar as we celebrate the Eucharist. Jesus will again offer up His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity for us as God’s gift of grace. May we accept Jesus’ sacrifice as a gift for eternal life and share that grace so all the world can come to know God’s love.