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"O blessed light,
 O Trinity and
 first Unity!"


Whom do we blame for the worlds suffering?
God?   Original sin?   Ourselves?

A sixteen-year-old wants to go to a party with two friends, one of whom owns a pick-up truck. His father and mother say, “no,” because the teen has studying to do and must get up early for soccer practice.   Plus the father has suspicions about both the truck-owning friend and the party. A few hours later the teen slips out his bedroom window and is picked up by his friends, both of whom have been drinking. The young man jumps into the back of the pick-up; fifteen minutes later the truck rolls four times. The father and mother lose a precious son.
Did the mother and father allow this to happen? Or put in another way, how could a mother or a father allow such suffering? Is it fair to blame the mother and the father for their sons death?

In the same light, Catholic theology tells us about the fall of mankind that took place in a garden called Eden wherein Gods very special creation dwelt. When God created mankind, mankind lived under the shelter of His loving grace. God told mankind all would be good if it stayed with Him in His grace, in His love, in His shelter. But mankind was lacking, flawed in the fact that it was not God, but rather created by God. Its inclination through temptation was to want more than Gods grace, His love, His shelter, which it already had; it wanted more, it desired to be a god itself. It wanted to be in control. It did not know how much God loved His creation and it did not yet know loves maturity. It asked God what would happen if it left Him to set out and discover the world and all that it might have to offer? God told mankind that out there on its own, away from His grace, His love, His shelter, in the dessert,  it would die. Mankind being mankind, and not God, thought, “Lets give it a try,” and so decided to set out on its own, away from Gods grace, His love, and His shelter, to make a life of its own to see what the world had to offer. God, being pure love, did not force His creation to stay in His life giving light, as love does not force love.

So it was away from God that pain and suffering were given life, to take life away from God, once mankind set out on its own, outside Gods grace, outside Gods love, outside Gods shelter, outside of Gods life giving light.  But God, being pure love, could not let His creation perish into the darkness, into themselves without waging a good battle to win them back home, So God became as one of them to remind them in person that He was thinking about them,  that He still loved them very much, that He always would. That no matter what they did or what they failed to do, He would always have a place for them ready if they decided to turn back home, away from what the world had to offer.

He showed them that in order to get back home they needed to trust in His grace, in His love, in His shelter in order to move towards the light that would bring them back home. In essence he offered them a second chance to come home by dying for them, to show them the worlds alternative to Himself; the alternative to love is sin, suffering and death apart from Him. He had to die because the world leaves no one standing, and God, being pure love, can in no way stand in this world. He had to die to show us we either stand in this world, in ourselves, or we stand with and in God.  The fall of mankind was a tragedy destined to happen, because even though we are made by God, we are not God. In His realm we will find eternal life because of a choice -- choosing that He will be enough for us forever, that apart from Him this world offers us nothing more than a taste of joy and happiness with a large portion of sin and suffering that leads eventually to death. With Gods grace we can get out of here with the knowledge He will keep us in His grace, His love and His shelter forever without thoughts of ever leaving, of falling back into ourselves, that age old desire to be a god. Then we will spend eternity in prayer and in hope that others such as ourselves will find the same Hope that we have found in God.

Whom do we blame for the world's suffering? We all need to take a good hard look at ourselves, our desires, in order to come  face to face with the Cross,  our fallen nature in order to answer that age old question. Then and only then will we be able to focus on Jesus, the healer of our souls,  the light of the world, in order to  allow him to lift us up so that we can truly see what the world really has to offer us, so that we can see the alternative where real Hope and peace will always be found no matter what deserts we have to walk through here. Our first parents made a mistake that was bound to happen. We can help them make amends. Today lets pray for our first parents, that they have returned to God, through prayer our helping us in return. .As Catholics, Today lets pray for those in the  world.
.......Catholic RCIA Treasures