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November 18, 2007
Pastor’s Perspective
This is the thirty-third Sunday of the Church Year and we focus on
the end time. We long for victory, for the promise that the end
will witness God’s victory over all events and death too. We can
be confident of victory over all the calamities, wars and terror that
make up our daily headlines, because Jesus answers us that through all
that is to come, both good and bad, He is with us.
In a
talk given at Westminster Cathedral, Cardinal Hume reflects on this
seeming tension between the suffering we experience and Paul’s promise
that “nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in
Christ Jesus our Lord”
Suffering
There
is no clear certain answer to the question, “Why?” which will run
through our heads. Where do we go, then, to find some suggestion where
the answer may be? If not, where do we go to find some
comfort? St. Paul, writing to the Romans, reminds us: “for I am
sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the
love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). There
is a phrase “blind faith” – blind because we do not see clearly, faith
because we have to take the faith of another. That word of St.
Paul is, I believe, the only one that can give true comfort. We
do not understand, yet cannot and must not doubt that there is some
meaning in the providence of God which is hidden from us. If we
speak of the providence of God there will always be that element of
love which will be the ultimate explanation of why we weep, why we
suffer. Hang on to that one simple truth, that somehow in the
providence of God his love will be in action.
Cardinal Hume
Mass for Honduras victims
Westminster Cathedral
November 27, 1998
Peace,
Fr. Chuck
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