15th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A
First Reading: Is 55:10-11
Second Reading: Rom 8:18-23
Gospel Reading: Mt 13:1-23
“The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us,” St. Paul says.
These words are apt as many priests of the Archdiocese of Vancouver take up new positions. They love the people they have served, and they are sad to leave them, however much they anticipate loving their new parishioners.
The same goes for the parishioners. In general, they love their priests; they are sorry to see them go. Moreover, they may be somewhat anxious about the incoming priests (especially people who have been employed in the parish by the previous pastor!).
The contrast between our present sufferings and our future glory and happiness constitutes what we may call the problem of evil.
God created the world out of love, and he saw that it was good, although it is still “journeying” toward its ultimate perfection. At every point of its journey, God is the sovereign master of his plan: in his providence, he governs, guides, and protects creation directly and concretely.
Then why does evil exist?
First, says the Catechism of the Catholic Church, God’s plan 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.” Accordingly, physical evil, like illness and physical suffering, exists alongside physical good.
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 angels and humans the intelligence and the free will necessary to collaborate with him deliberately: by action, prayer, and suffering. We can therefore 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, 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 love him not just because he programmed us that way, but by our free choice and preference.
In our freedom, however, we can choose not to love God. Either way, he accepts our decision. If we reject him, we do not spoil his plan; we continue to take part in it, but unconsciously, like a tool he uses, instead of consciously, like a co-worker he consults.
As we know, some angels and humans have decided not to embrace God and his loving plan for creation. Thus moral evil, immeasurably more harmful than physical evil, has entered the world. Neither directly nor indirectly does God cause this evil, the Catechism says, but he permits it because he respects our freedom.
In Jesus’ parable of the sower, much of the good seed seems to be wasted. However, God says that “as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there until they have watered the earth,” so his word will not return to him empty but shall “accomplish” his purposes.
Nothing God does, however difficult to understand or accept, is wasted. His plan is never thwarted, for he is the master of history.
However, his ways are often hidden from us, the Catechism admits. Not until the end of the world, when we see him “face to face,” will we know his loving plan entirely and see 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.
Father Hawkswell has now finished teaching The Catholic Faith in Plain English. However, the course will remain available, in both print and YouTube form, at beholdvancouver.org/catholic-faith-course, until next September. At that time, he will teach it again, with new insights, both online and in person, on Sundays from 2 to 4 p.m. at the John Paul II Pastoral Centre (4885 Saint John Paul II Way, 33rd Avenue and Willow Street, Vancouver) and on Mondays from 10 a.m. to noon in St. Anthony’s Church Hall, 2347 Inglewood Avenue, West Vancouver.