The battle within

What I believe is, God deals in absolutes so therefore is a pragmatic father. He tells man "Ok, you want it your way? Well, go ahead. But your actions will have consequences that you'll have to answer for". We see the conswequences of man's inhumanity to man all the time, I don't need to go into examples. And sure enough, he'll come face to face with his Creator and will have to give account. Now, you don't go back and say that to your friend. Because someone feeling pain doesn't want to deal with absolutisms. You have a tough job there john. Just be there, go for coffee, answer the phone, go for a walk with your friend. Listen, because your friend wants to be heard...

 

John,

I recently finished re-reading Father Elijah by Michael O'Brien. The author, himself, describes this work as an apocalyptic novel of ideas. If you have access to this wonderful book, then the first seven pages of Chapter 22 (pp.575-581) portray this dilemma as a sort of dark night for the main character. It is this idea of the unrelenting advance of evil against untold numbers of innocents that has ravaged my heart at times, too. The above passage has helped me without necessarily providing an explicit answer.

Safe in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary!

 

I think this is something all Christians struggle with constantly. The more we care the more we struggle. I think this is less from the head than from the heart, because we love we hurt.


I have a particular love for animals, dogs in particular..and if anything is truly innocent it is an animal . One time, I suppose about ten years ago I was driving past Queen's University in the evening time when a dog in front of me was struck by a car and ran of howling, and making so much sound it actually sounded like it was screaming. I though at once of the poor creature running off into the dark untreated and in agony and how innocent it was and ,well if deeply moved me. So much so that of course I asked the inevitable question,

''Why God, oh why? Could you not help it? Could you not have prevented it?'

I know maybe a hurt dog might seem like a very small thing but to me it wasn't small at all and although I go to mass every day and pray constantly I can only say I actually felt the edifice of my Faith actually cracking right underfoot.

So I had to go to God in prayer for a few days and seek enlightenment.

What I found was this. God has created us to love, in His image. For He Himself is pure love. So we too , from one degree of glory until the next into the very image of Christ.

Now love is freely given or it is not love. God cannot force it , it is freely given or it is not love.

So although God is omnipotent He in a real way has handcuffed Himself with golden shackles. These golden shackles are because He has given us an Eternal Destiny, to know, love and serve Him. He cannot force us we have to give it.

Now when we were created we sinned rejecting love. So God has to give us the chance to climb back to the fullness of this love. In a very real way the good Lord is helpless in many ways in our ascent to love unless we open the doors of our hearts to love, to grace, to His sharing this love.

So with the Saints, for example who opened the doors of their hearts to love, miracles become possible. God then can directly intervene, the golden shackles are taken off.

In all of our lives their are miracles when we love, all of us, whether or not we see this or not. In small things or great.

Now God as I prayed asked me what things I would like to see Him remove in the world? I thought I would like to see War and Cancer and hunger removed. Very well said God imagine I have removed them. But then if I removed what else would you like to see removed? The list of course is endless. In the God showed me I would like to see even the pimple on a persons nose removed. Which made me laugh.

But with every removal right up to the pimple our freedom to choose to love would become more and more restricted and so the possibilities of our becoming love would grow less and less.

For freedom is the very ground in which the trees of our love flourish. In order to open the doors to God's intervention we ourselves must choose to love and so open the doors of our hearts to God's intervention to the greater streaming of His love and intervention, grace into out world.

TO the realisation of a New Heaven and a New Earth. We must take the Gold shackles off God's hands by taking the black shackles of sin from all our hearts.

Here is a very,very good book I read on this topic one time.

 

Oh I know I too was talking to Jesus about that last night! His compassion far surpasses ours so I know if it hurts me to see others/animals in pain it hurts Him a million times worse! But still it is all hard to comprehend. I use my Angel alot, and once many years ago I was in rush hour on the highway and a deer jumped the fence and was running into traffic right in front of me. I begged my angel to please help! and that deer stopped in its tracks right after I prayed and turned around and headed back into the woods. I know it could have been the deer got wise but so many of these kinds of incidents have happened when I've asked for help I know that our angels do help if asked.