ASK FR BITAJU | KAIROS GLOBAL | JANUARY 2022

Author: Fr Bitaju Mathew

It seems reasonable when people with no belief in God suffer. But what about kids born poor and who die due to starvation?

Jerin Vakayil, Bangalore, India

Let me begin by responding to the first part of your question. Suffering is an inevitable part of human life, whether one believes in God or not. Belief in God certainly can make a difference in the way one responds to suffering.  While a non-believer suffers without any meaning/purpose, a believer accepts and suffers for, and with a purpose. Suffering can make the life of a non-believer miserable and it is his choice that makes him suffer without a purpose. Whereas a Christian who finds meaning in suffering transcends his suffering for a noble cause. St. Paul, having grasped this meaning well, said, In my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church (Colossians 1:24). Thus, for Christians, when an individual spiritually unites himself to the cross of Christ by taking up his cross (suffering), the salvific meaning of suffering is revealed to him; his suffering becomes redemptive (Salvifici Doloris 26).  

Second part of your question is a perpetual query about the meaning and purpose of innocent suffering, especially children born poor and who die of starvation. I must admit that it is hard to propose a reason for such suffering as it belongs to the mysterious plan of God.  All that we can do is to learn from the history of salvation how people responded in faith to such innocent sufferings. Think of Mary at the foot of the cross. St. John Paull II reminds us that her fiat at this moment can be thought to be an even greater act of faith than her initial fiat to the archangel Gabriel (Luke 1:38). Pope Francis while addressing a group of terminally ill children and their families said that Our Lady also did not understand and did not have an answer ‘when they handed down to her the dead body of her Son, covered with wounds, spat on, bloodied and soiled’.  

The Holy Bible presents Job as an excellent example of innocent suffering without knowing the reason. In the course of time Job realises that suffering is part of God’s plan, that it needs to be accepted as long it lasts, and that God never abandons the one who suffers. Paul who apprehended the meaning of suffering in the context of eternal life declared, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us (Romans 8:18). 

In responding to your question, I am pretty clear that I did not resolve the perennial mystery of suffering. I only tried to shed some light for you to appreciate that there is meaning and purpose in suffering – a mysterious plan of God for our redemption. 

YOUCAT 96 

Why was a man of peace like Jesus condemned to death on a Cross? 

Jesus posed a decisive question to his contemporaries: Either he was acting with divine authority, or else he was an impostor, a blasphemer, and a violator of the Law and who had to be called to account. [574-576] 

In many respects Jesus was a unprecedented challenge to the traditional Judaism of his time. He forgave sins, which God alone can do; he acted as though the Sabbath law were not absolute; he was suspected of blasphemy and brought upon himself the accusation that he was a false prophet. All these were crimes punishable under the Law by death.