The Purpose of Pain

"Does God really care about us? If so, why does He permit suffering?"

The question was written in bold letters across the front of the Watchtower magazine our friendly neighborhood witness for Jehovah had just handed me. And while I found the answer in the pamphlet to be less than satisfactory, I realized the importance of the question. Had I not asked it many times, for myself and my loved ones? "God, if you love me, why did You create me deformed? God, if You love him, why did You let my grandfather get cancer? How could You let my brother and sister die so young? How can You let these bad things happen?" They are questions I have heard from others many times, especially from atheists. In a world so full of pain, it is hard to see a merciful and loving God. It is too easy to, like Personal Failure, come to the conclusion that God--if He exists at all--must be very cold and cruel. And thus the question echoes on in an aching universe: If God is truly loving, how can He let bad things happen? In answer, I propose that pain has a purpose. In fact, I maintain that it has three.

-The first purpose is to teach us about responsibility.

Now, two types of people like to balk at this. The first says that we can't possibly do anything to merit suffering because God--being God--allowed it in the first place, and even made us do it. "You can’t give God the credit for the good without also blaming Him for the bad," sums this mentality up rather well. This is answered rather simply, from a Christian viewpoint. We maintain that God is Love and Goodness in itself. Naturally, if we do anything Loving and Good we are doing it with Him and are capable of it because of Him. This is much like crediting solar power and photosynthesis to the sun; it wouldn't have been possible without the sun. However, to say that we can blame God for the bad is a lot like saying we can blame the sun for darkness and the necessity of flashlights. Evil does not come from God. It is not even a thing unto itself. Rather, it is a lack of God, just like darkness is a lack of light. When people do bad things, they move farther away from God, Love, and Goodness. When people do bad things, those things are bad precisely because God is *not* involved. We cannot blame God for our moving away from Him.
The second type of person thinks that if God really loved us He would save us from pain no matter how much we deserved it. Though the comparison has been used many times before, I have to recycle it here: that's just like a whiny little kid. "If you really cared for me, you'd just forgive me for getting an F on my biology test and let me go to Kirsten's party!" Which note dumps us right back into the first purpose of pain: responsibility.

Responsibility is a crucial point of development in the life of a child. It is the ability to perceive the relationship between action and consequence and to handle the repercussions of one's choices accordingly. We are not born with this knowledge: it is taught to us at a very early age through experience and by our parents. When we crossed the road without first looking (assuming we weren't crushed by a car) our parents fussed us. When we failed a test for lack of study, our parents grounded us. We were told not give our information out of the Internet and, if we did so anyway, our parents punished us for it. All to teach us that when we do things, there are consequences, and when we do bad things there are unpleasant consequences. Our understanding of this deepens as we grow older and become more mature until we learn to not do bad things in the first place. If we could not learn to face the repercussions of our actions or prevent them by not acting, we would never grow...and we might very well end up suffering twofold for our ignorance. This applies in the spiritual realm as well as the physical.

We are fallen men. We can choose to move away from God, and often do. When we do this--when we commit sin--we will face negative repercussions. If we view porn, our relationships suffer. If we use birth control, our relationships suffer...and we can suffer infertility problems. Every bad action has a negative consequence, and it is by facing these consequences that we learn--wonder of wonders--not to do bad things! Like a parent grounding their children for failing a test or giving their information out on the Internet or fussing their child for crossing the street without first looking, God allows us to suffer for our actions, to meet the natural and direct consequences of the choices we willingly made. To teach--that is the first, most obvious, and most mundane purpose of pain.

TO BE CONTINUED: HERE

What I Gave for Christmas

I do not know if a study has ever been done, or if it is even possible to conduct such a one, but I truly wish that we could have a poll to determine the most common Christmas phrase, counting all the way through to the twelfth day. I would be willing to bet, from my own personal experience, that it is not “Merry Christmas,” or even all of its equivalents combined. No, I think the most frequently heard greeting during the Christmas season is, “What did you get?”

Whenever I meet my cousins at Christmas day lunch, their first question is inevitably, “What did you get from Santa?” To which I respond with all the cool things I received, listing the best first with a proper flourish, before returning the inquiry. Whenever I meet my friends in the eleven days following, at some point in the beginning of the conversation, they are bound to ask, “Hey, Tally! What did you get for Christmas?” Then we compare gifts, swap them temporarily, and each admire what the other got. I have heard this question monotonously spouted from some of the staunchest Keep Christ-in-Christmassers, and one year I began to think. Why is everyone so focused on what they received? One is not supposed to be preoccupied with what they got. And though perhaps the question is only asked to share in the newfound delights of your loved ones, why shift their focus to what they got for Christmas?

I propose a new and lesser heard Christmas phrase. “What did you give for Christmas?”

I have posed this inquiry several times with varying and interesting responses. The best are from little children who worked hard to make Mommy’s painting and are as proud to tell you of it as if they had received a million dollars and an Xbox Live. I love to watch their ecstatic expressions as they innocently tell of their selfless accomplishments. Of course, there is the risk of developing pride. This, however, is easily remedied. Just ask the question to someone who gave something really big for Christmas—like Christ. Your puny sweater will collapse beneath the weight of their response and your pride with it.

I think the perfect Christmas conversation should begin with an acknowledgement of the season (“Merry Christmas!”) then gratitude for what we received (“What did you get?”) and then a return to the true purpose of Christmas—giving (“What did you give?”). Maybe someday I’ll meet someone who, along with the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, responds that they gave Christ for Christmas. Maybe someday I’ll be able to respond that I gave Christ for Christmas. At any rate, next year, I hope to make my conversation run something along those lines, and not along this year’s:

“Hey, Tally, what did you get for Christmas?”
“I’m more concerned with what I gave, Jake.”
“Okay…so what did you give for Christmas?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m concerned.”

Homophobes and Homomaniacs

So, that last post was terribly written, but I don’t feel like redeeming myself at the moment. I am moderately ADD and I just saw a squirrel, so here goes nothing…

A homophobe is someone who hates homosexuals. Perhaps, since “phobia” means fear, it is not really the correct terminology; but I didn’t make it up, so “homophobia” it is. Homophobes are those crazy people who picket the funerals of soldiers, claim that all lesbians are going to hell, that God hates gays (as if God hates anyone!), and the like. For some reason, when they look at gays and lesbians, they do not see people. They do not see beloved sons and daughters of God, sons and daughters of humans, or Star Wars fans, or people who like cats. All they see is an orientation and they judge based solely on that orientation.

A homomaniac is someone who is obsessed with homosexuals. As a “mania” is an excessive and unreasonable enthusiasm, I think the word is particularly fitting. (I found out I didn’t coin it. Alas. My genius is cliché. Oh, well.) A homomaniac looks at a homosexual and sees a homosexual. This is why they pump their children up with hormonal suppressants and claim they wanted it since they were three. This is why, when anyone ventures the opinion that homosexual acts are wrong, the maniacs immediately retort that you are a homophobe. They cannot see the difference between a person and an orientation, homosexuals and homosexuality, and so they think that if you don’t accept the act you cannot possibly accept the person. Like the homophobes, they reduce gays and lesbians to their orientation.

I feel very sorry for gays and lesbians, who are often caught between these two equally degrading groups. I would like to offer them a way out: The Catholic Church.

I have gotten a great many disbelieving stares and emphatic “What?!?”s at this statement. I can only quote this article when I am presented with objections.

“It is often assumed that because Latin American countries are Catholic, “machistic,”and frequently ruled by military dictatorship that they are also very repressive of homosexuals. While there is disapproval in Latin American countries of homosexual activities, a live-and-let-live attitude is nevertheless wide spread. Catholicism, despite its longstanding strictures against homosexuality, for complex social and political reasons, does not automatically translate its moral norms into repression of homosexuals. On the whole, there is greater tolerance of homosexuals in the Catholic countries of Latin America than in the Protestant countries of the English-speaking world.” (p. 322)

Now, Whitman and Zent do not know much about the Catholic Church if they think it is merely social and political reasons that stay the hand of the Church and prevent violence. But they have stumbled upon a truth: that the Church does not condemn homosexuals. In her everlasting advice of “love the sin, hate the sinner,” she merely condemns homosexual acts. While the Westboro Baptist Church has their website GodHatesFags, the Catholic Church invites you to be Courageous!

In a society who has fallen right into Screwtape’s trap, the Catholic Church alone is the one who has avoided all extremisms except extreme devotion to God. While the Westboro Baptist Church criticizes Catholics for not despising homosexuals and condemning only their actions, the LGTB society bashes her for not approving of homosexual acts. The Catholic Church is median, even and especially in the subject of homosexuality. The Catholic Church is neither lax nor strict; she is the perfect parent, loving and yet not afraid to discipline her children for their sake. Gays and lesbians, tired of being defined by and reduced to what they feel, are slowly finding refuge in her loving and understanding arms. If you know someone who is experiencing same sex attraction, or are experiencing it yourself, I invite you to visit http://www.couragerc.org/. Don’t buy into the skewed extremist agendas of the homophobes and the homomaniacs. Homosexuals are people like everyone else, with feelings and faults.

Jesus did not approve of our sin.

He did not condemn us.

Seven Proofs that Women are Women

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Thanksgiving

As if it is not pathetic enough that we only have one day out of the entire year set aside for feeling grateful, our society seems intent on trying to forget even this measly twenty-four hours. Thus the scary Halloween props give way to joyful and slightly absurd Christmas decorations with nary a mention of Gratitude-Day. I have met more people holding a religious fervor for Black Friday than I have those who give thanks on Thanksgiving. Therefore, to be completely counter-cultural and completely in the spirit of perpetual gratitude to Our Lord, I write this blog post the day after Thanksgiving.

There are a million and three things that I can thank God for this year. I can thank him for my health, my family, my friends, my house, my truck, my career, and my education. And finding that there is an awful lot of “my”s in there, I can express a deeper, less mundane thankfulness for my life, for His forgiveness, and for my Faith. However, I think the greatest thing I can thank God for, as a Catholic—other than being Catholic in the first place, of course—is the Eucharist. Think about it.

God not only created us, He loved us so much He died for us. And not only did He die for us, but He allows us to be present, right here, right now, at that greatest moment in history. The Mass is an Immortal Moment. During it, God picks us all up, transcends time, and places us at the foot of Calvary. Jesus’ redeeming death was not some event that happened a long time ago and which is now gone. We witness it every Sunday. WE ARE THERE. And we actively participate in it. Just as the Passover sacrifice was not complete until the Paschal lamb was consumed, so is consuming the New Paschal Lamb an integral part of Jesus’ Sacrifice. This, friends, is the Eucharist. It would be the greatest blasphemy of all time if God Himself had not sanctioned and commanded it. (No wonder the Protestants are up in arms, eh?) Catholics eat God. There you have it, plain and simple. We consume Jesus. Don’t cringe! If a mother pelican feeds her babies her own flesh to keep them from starving, how much greater will God’s love be for us? Is it so strange, in the light of Love and History, for the Eucharist to be…well, the Eucharist? Not at all.

This Thanksgiving, I thank God for the Eucharist. Thank You, Jesus, for allowing us to actively participate in Your Testament of Love for us. Thank You for being with us—Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity—in every Tabernacle throughout the world. Thank You for loving us more than pelicans do their chicks. It must be a long and lonely wait there in the cold, with few souls willing to visit You, our Divine Prisoner. Thank you for your Immortal Sacrifice, and please help me to fully understand and appreciate it. Amen.

(…Are you grateful? Do you ever visit the Perpetual Adoration chapel, or visit Jesus outside of Mass? Please join me spiritually, my brothers and sisters in Christ, before Jesus in the Tabernacle today. And if you can’t, pray for me on Sunday. I’ll be praying for you!)

BadCatholic on Feminism

So, I found a new pal in my crusade against feminism. BadCatholic beat me to posting such a rant on the interweb, as I found out earlier today. His post is similar to mine, but has a slightly different approach, so I highly suggest you find out how feminists are stupid.

That might sound cruel, but, frankly, it is true. Maybe. I have long suspected that such a level of ignorance is impossible, and that feminists are being illogical on purpose because they hate women. What feminists would like us to believe, is that they are rescuing women from the degrading mentality of men. What actually happened was this: Men said women are morally and mentally inferior, and feminists responded, "You're right! We are inferior, and you are superior. Let's all become men." Feminism is the worst thing that happened to women. That is it an ironic and stupid cause, you, reader, cannot grasp fully enough.

Now, in case you are thinking that this marks the end of my anti-anti-woman harping, rest assured that I am readying more posts for the Hidden Battles. I fully intend to explain how women should be treated if they are appreciated as women, and what happens when we don't treat them as women. So keep an eye out!

Feed the Hungry

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Patchwork!