The Presentation, Atheism, And The Problem Of Suffering

(This Thursday Throwback was first published on The Feast of the Presentation, February 2nd, 2015)


And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him; and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, "Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed." (Luke 2:33-35)

Girolamo Romanino: The Presentation of Jesus at the Temple

     The Presentation of the Lord presents us with a paradox, or maybe a series of paradoxes, which can lead us deeper into the mystery of Christ.  On the one hand, it is our last fleeting look back at the recently concluded Christmas Season, and we experience some of the joy and wonder of that season, particularly in the prophetic utterances of Simeon. Simeon proclaims the infant Jesus “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to thy people Israel” (Luke 2:32). His final words, however, foretelling that Christ will be “a sign that is spoken against” and warning the Blessed Mother that “a sword will pierce through your own soul also” redirect us toward the quickly approaching Season of Lent and beyond to the sorrow and suffering of the Triduum.  The last thing we see in Luke’s account of the Presentation is the prophetess Anna, who pulls together the apparent contraries in Simeon’s prophecy: she “spoke of him to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38).  In the end, the glory of Christmas and the sword of Good Friday come together on Easter Sunday: Redemption comes only from the light shining through the darkness of suffering, and we catch a glimpse of the entire story in the Feast of Presentation.

     Given the above, I found it interesting that this story [here] appeared just this morning: Englishman Stephen Fry, an “outspoken atheist”, was asked what he would say if he found himself, contrary to his expectation, face to face with his Creator in the afterlife:

 “I’d say, ‘Bone cancer in children? What’s that about?’” he began.

“’How dare you? How dare you create a world to which there is such misery that is not our fault,” Fry continued. “It’s not right, it’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?’ That’s what I would say.”

"Outspoken Atheist" Stephen Fry

In other words, the old Problem of Suffering (which I spend a lot of time discussing with my adolescent religion students).  For us Christians this problem is resolved in the Mystery of the Cross, as we saw above: it’s a paradox that leads us to a higher understanding, and a greater experience.  For the unbeliever, however, it is a contradiction which, if followed to its logical conclusion, leads to annihilation.  Most atheists believe that all reality is reducible to matter, and that this present world is all there is.  Suffering, therefore, is the worst thing that can possibly happen; hence the righteous indignation of the Steven Frys of the world:

Fry went on to question why the God of the universe would allow pain and suffering and argued that doing away with belief in God makes life “simpler, purer, cleaner, more wroth [sic] living, in my opinion.”

Doing away with belief in God, however, really only makes Fry’s problem worse: instead of leading to redemption, suffering is now simply random and pointless pain.  Not only that, but it is something we all must experience, it’s inescapable.  The only way to eliminate suffering for a Steven Fry is to eliminate not God, but humanity.  Fry’s fellow atheist, the philosopher David Benatar [here] proposes just this solution is his book Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence. 

    Small wonder that The Presentation is included in the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary, despite Simeon’s ominous (and alarming, no doubt, to Mary and Joseph) utterance.  We are reminded that, through his Incarnation, Death, and Resurrection, Christ has sanctified suffering, that it is no longer a random, meaningless evil, but a path to Heaven.  That is, indeed, Good News.

    

Our Lady Of Sorrows & The Mystery Of Suffering

     Today, September 15th, is the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows.  How fitting that today some of my students want to talk about suffering, as in “If God is good, why does he allow suffering?”

     This is a tough question, but not because it is intellectually difficult.  It is easy to demonstrate that suffering often leads to a greater good: why else would so many people willingly undergo, for instance, the sometimes severe discomfort of chemotherapy in order to treat their cancer, or even risk their own lives for others, as soldiers have done for millennia?  It is also pretty clear that we may not know the good that comes of it, such as a small child who doesn’t understand why he’s being punished for running out into the road, or a sick pet that couldn’t possibly comprehend why she’s being stuck with a hypodermic needle.   It’s simply hard to accept, emotionally, that a loving God would allow such horrific suffering as some people experience, particularly suffering at the hands of evil and sadistic fellow men (I suspect that some of my students have been disturbed by events in the news lately).

     Herein lies the Mystery of Suffering: even when it makes sense, it feels so wrong. The key lies in that word “mystery”, from the Greek μυστήριον, which is not something unknowable, but rather something known only through experience. So it is with suffering: it makes sense when we experience it, and experience it in the light of faith.  As it happens, I heard Gary Zimak talking about this same topic on the radio this morning, and picked up this great quote: “God doesn’t give us the Grace to handle imaginary problems.” He does offer us the Grace to handle problems we are actually experiencing, as St. Paul tells us (1 Corinthian 10:13), as long as we turn to him in faith.  

     The Christian answer, then, is that God is not indifferent to suffering, but his concern is not expressed by giving us a world without suffering, which could well be a world without the possibility of real love, but by suffering with us. That’s why our preeminent image is Christ on the Cross.  And not only does he suffer for and with us, but we can join our suffering to his: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, on behalf of his body, which is the Church” (Colossians 1:24). By joining Christ in his suffering, we share in his redemptive mission. So, not only does Christ console us in our suffering, but we can use our own suffering to help others.

     Which brings us to Our Lady of Sorrows.  It struck me just today how some of the joyful mysteries of the Rosary are tied in to Mary’s Seven Sorrows: the Presentation, the Fourth Joyful Mystery, is also the occasion of the First of Mary’s Seven Sorrows, when Simeon prophecies that a sword shall pierce Mary’s heart; the Loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple (the Third Sorrow) leads to the Finding of Jesus (the Fifth Joyful Mystery).  How interesting that we have devotions centered on the suffering of the Woman whom all generations will call Blessed.  Clearly, blessedness does not mean freedom from pain and sorrow,  And yet she is the First Disciple and our Model in the Faith.  If her sorrows and suffering can help bring about the eternal Joy of the Resurrection, ours will not be in vain.

The Seven Sorrows of Mary

1.      The Prophecy of Simeon

2.      The Flight into Egypt

3.      The loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple

4.      Mary meets Jesus on the way to Calvary

5.      Jesus dies on the Cross

6.      Mary receives the Body of Jesus

7.      The burial of Jesus

St. Maximilian Kolbe, Witness To The Gospel Of Love

 Today we celebrate the feast of one of great Saints of the last century, St. Maximilian Kolbe, priest and martyr.  He died by lethal injection on this date in 1941, after suffering for two weeks in the starvation bunker in the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.  When he was a young man he had a dream in which the Blessed Mother offered him two crowns: the white crown of purity, and the red crown of martyrdom; he chose both.  He is remembered, therefore, in addition to his dedication to spreading the Gospel through the most up-to-date means available, for his devotion to Our Lady, his personal sanctity, and his heroic, self-sacrificing death.

     From his earliest days, St. Maximilian was eager to spread the faith.  He became a Conventual Franciscan, and before he was even ordained he founded The Militia Immaculata, a movement open to all Catholics that aims, through consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary, for the spiritual renewal of individuals and society.  Evangelization is a large part of the Militia's mission, and so St. Maximilian founded a large community for that purpose in his native Poland, and published a magazine he called The Knight Of The Immaculata.  He later established a similar community in Nagasaki, Japan, and quickly became fluent in Japanese so that he could publish in that counrtry as well.

     He also evangelized through the example, not only of his sanctity, but also of his personal warmth and prodigious generosity.  Those who knew him at Auschwitz (an amazing number of whom somehow survived the experience) always spoke of his constant concern for his fellow prisoners, in spite of the sometimes worse abuse the he himself was suffering.  In the end, he gave the ultimate gift: his own life.  When his jailers chose ten men at random to be starved to death in retaliation for an escape, St. Maximilian, who had not been chosen, volunteered to take the place of one of the ten,  because the other man had a wife and children while the celibate Catholic priest had none.

     The modern means of communication available in St. Maximilian Kolbe's day was a printing press.  If he were with use today, he would not only be publishing in print, but also would be a presence online, publishing, blogging, and taking full advantage of social media.  Not surprisingly, he is Patron Saint of journalists, as well as drug addicts, families, political prisoners, and the pro-life movement (and also one of the patrons of this blog).  Even more than his eloquence, however, or his ability to communicate the beauty of the Catholic Faith, St. Maximilian witnessed with his own life.  He lived up to both the Crowns offered by the Blesed Mother, and like Our Lord, showed us that "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).

Dispatches From The Culture Of Death, Part One

The Culture of Death     

There are those who say that St. John Paul II was exaggerating, or at least being unduly harsh, when he coined the term “Culture of Death” in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae.  If only that were true. The secular world simply insists on offering death as the “compassionate” response to all sorts of things: suffering at the end of life, difficulties at life’s beginning and, increasingly, trouble in between.  Today I’d like to explore one recent example of the Culture of Death at work, and a second next week.

The Architect of Obamacare

     Let us consider  Ezekiel Emmanuel, brother of President Obama’s former Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel.  Ezekiel, one of the prime architects of the ironically named Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare), published a piece in The Atlantic last fall called “Why I Hope To Die At 75” [here].  The wide-ranging essay explores at great length the disadvantages of old age: reduced productivity, lessened vitality, the host of physical ailments that proliferate as we age, but, interestingly, doesn’t focus on the effect of these things upon the sufferer:

Doubtless, death is a loss . . . But here is a simple truth that many of us seem to resist: living too long is also a loss. It renders many of us, if not disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived. It robs us of our creativity and ability to contribute to work, society, the world. It transforms how people experience us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us. We are no longer remembered as vibrant and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.[my italics]

It is selfish of us, you see, to force others to experience our decline: the compassionate thing is to quit while we are ahead.  Emmanuel is most emphatic that he is not advocating euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide, quite correctly pointing out that “the answer” to the desire to actively bring about one’s own death “is not ending a life but getting help. I have long argued that we should focus on giving all terminally ill people a good, compassionate death—not euthanasia or assisted suicide for a tiny minority.”

Just One Man's Opinion?

     So what is he advocating? He claims that he will refuse any “life-prolonging” treatment of any sort: “I will stop getting any regular preventive tests, screenings or interventions.  I will accept only palliative – not curative – treatments if I am suffering pain or other disability.”   After a lengthy recitation of the routine treatment he intends to forgo, Emmanuel says “I will die when whatever comes first takes me.”

     We could just dismiss this as no more than one opinionated man’s personal view, and Emmanuel encourages us to do just that:

I am not saying that those who want to live as long as possible are unethical or wrong. I am certainly not scorning or dismissing people who want to live on despite their physical and mental limitations. I’m not even trying to convince anyone I’m right. . . And I am not advocating 75 as the official statistic of a complete, good life in order to save resources, ration health care, or address public-policy issues arising from the increases in life expectancy.

But he gives the game away when he adds:

What I am trying to do is delineate my views for a good life and make my friends and others think about how they want to live as they grow older. I want them to think of an alternative to succumbing to that slow constriction of activities and aspirations imperceptibly imposed by aging. Are we to embrace the “American immortal” or my “75 and no more” view? [my italics]

There Are Opinions, And Then There Are Opinions

And what is the point of getting others to think of alternative ways to live (and die) if not to persuade them to change their behavior?  In truth, underneath the welter of medical facts and figures and the personal focus, we see two very familiar arguments: the “quality of life” argument (i.e., a “diminished” life isn’t worth living) and the “appeal to compassion” (we should spare our family and society the “burden” - including the financial burden - of our  infirmity).

Ezekiel Emmanuel

     Nonetheless, isn’t that just his opinion?  No, because when a prominent man, one with a “Dr.” in front of his name, expresses his opinion, buttressed with all sorts of impressive medical sounding data, and in very engaging and (truth be told) well-crafted prose, it has an impact.  The more often such opinions come from such sources the less unthinkable such opinions become in the wider world, until they eventually become commonplace.  We have seen this strategy employed to perfection in recent years in the campaign to redefine marriage (more on that next week). 

     There is also the fact that, despite his disclaimers, Ezekiel Emmanuel is still has a great deal of influence on public policy: in addition to his well-known public connection with Obamacare he is the director of the Clinical Bioethics Department at the National Institutes for Health.  Add it all together and, as Ben Shapiro points out in a piece on the Breitbart site [here],

                 . . . his opinion carries weight.

Enough weight that the same day Emanuel’s piece published, a 21-member Institute of Medicine panel announced that we need to revamp our end-of-life care. “The current system is geared towards doing more, more, more, and that system by definition is not necessarily consistent with what patients want, and is also more costly,” said David M. Walker, former US comptroller general and chairman of the panel. The panel also encouraged end-of-life conversations with as many elderly folks as possible, and that costs could be slashed by thinking about aging differently.

           

That's a rather curious coincidence, don't you think?  And perhaps its no coincidence, as Shapiro points out, that "Ezekiel Emmanuel was elected in 2004 to the Institute of Medicine". 

     Finally, while Emmanuel explicitly opposes euthanasia and suicide (and I don’t doubt his sincerity), the attitude towards aging that he is validating and encouraging will inevitably make those “options” more and more acceptable; and if the public thinks there’s nothing wrong with it, why shouldn’t the government facilitate it . . . or require it? I am reminded of Blessed Paul VI’s warning about birth control measures (if we change Paul's reference to "married" people to "ordinary" poeple) :

Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by [ordinary] people. . . ? (Humanae Vitae, 17)

The slope is getting more slippery all the time.

Next Week: What could be funnier than abortion?

(This Throwback was first published in September, 2014)

Moses, Pharaoh & Why We Preach The Gospel

    The scriptural reading from this past Tuesday’s Office of Readings was from the Book of Exodus (6:28-7:25).  In this passage we see Moses and Aaron going to Pharaoh in order to ask him to release the Hebrews from bondage in Egypt.  Pharaoh is unwilling, and so Moses and Aaron use miraculous signs in an effort to convince him:  Aaron throws down his staff and it turns into a snake, but Pharaoh’s magicians turn their staffs into snakes as well; even after Aaron’s snake devours the others, Pharaoh is unpersuaded.  Next, Moses turns all the water in Egypt into blood,

But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts; so Pharaoh’s heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them [i.e., Moses and Aaron], as the Lord had said. Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and he did not lay even this to heart. (Exodus 7:22-23)

     We should not be surprised that Pharaoh so easily dismissed Moses and his miracles, because God had “hardened his heart” (Exodus 7:3), and someone whose heart is hardened toward God will always be able to explain away any evidence we can offer, any arguments (however sound), and even miraculous events.  We cannot by either proof or persuasion change a mind that does not want to be changed.

Why Preach?

     Am I saying, then, that it is futile to for us to contend with atheists and agnostics in a contest of ideas? By no means.  If a hard heart is the obstacle, then a softening of the heart can make change possible.   This softening only happens through the work of the Holy Spirit, but our words and actions can either help or hinder the process.  More significantly, we can plant seeds (if I may switch metaphors) that might take root in the soil prepared by the Spirit, and even somebody who is not willing to listen today may at a more fertile time remember what we have said.  The atheist philosopher Anthony Flew is one example, who late in life was finally ready to be convinced by arguments he had been rejecting for decades, and willing to embrace the reality of a Creator.  We see something similar in the case of another atheist philosopher, the Jewish-born Edith Stein, who later became a Carmelite nun and was murdered by the Nazis; we now know her as St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross.

     What we say is important.  How we live our lives and treat other people (expressly including those with whom we are debating) is even more important, because the good example of Christians has led to many conversions.  Let’s return to Pharaoh for a moment.  He eventually relented and released the Hebrews after the events of the first Passover, when the lives of the first-born sons of the Egyptians were taken.  For many of us, the Holy Spirit softens our hard hearts through  suffering or misfortune.  In the Twelve Steps (the recovery program of Alcoholics Anonymous, which has now been applied in many other areas) this is known as “hitting rock bottom”: life has become so difficult, so intolerable, that a person is finally driven to consider possibilities that had been unthinkable before.   If a person who has reached such a point sees Christians living peaceful and joyful lives, he or she is likely to ask “why can’t I have that?”  This person is ready for conversion.  If he sees Christians who are back-biting hypocrites, on the other hand, he will probably start looking elsewhere, and the opportunity that the Holy Spirit has created will be lost.

Knowing Our Own Part

     Apart from the person or persons with whom we are in direct dialogue, we also need to be aware of others who might be listening to our discussion.  Who knows where they are in their faith journey?  They might be wavering, and looking for reasons not to give up on God, or they could be someone for whom the soil has been prepared, and they are waiting for just the right seeds.  Even if the person to whom we think we are speaking never comes to conversion, what we say, and how we say it, can have a profound impact on bystanders.

     Finally, we have been commissioned to preach the Gospel by Jesus Christ Himself (Mark 6:15).  It seems that our Lord wants to use us as his instruments, even though it is His power that changes hearts.  Perhaps that’s why he sends Moses, who says “since I am a poor speaker, how is it possible that Pharaoh will listen to me” (Exodus 6:30), so that it is clear that it is God, and not Moses’ eloquence, that wins freedom for the Hebrews.

     Seeing our proper role here is the key.  Mother Theresa used to remark that she was called not to be successful, but faithful.  This is a good reminder for all of us, because we tend to take upon ourselves responsibility for the results, when all that is under our control is the effort.  Exodus reminds us that if we do what our Lord asks us to do, He can take care of the rest.

The 3rd Day of Christmas & St. John the Evangelist: The Disciple Jesus Loved

So the soldiers did this. But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold, your son!" Then he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother!" And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. (John 19:25-27)

Pieta between St. John and Mary Magdalene (Pietro Perugino)

     Merry 3^rd Day of Christmas!  Today is also the Feast of St. John the Evangelist, author not only of one of the Gospels, but also three New Testament letters and the Book of Revelation. St. John has traditionally been represented by an eagle because he “soars” to greater heights, theologically speaking, than the other Evangelists.  He is also known as “The Beloved Disciple” because in his Gospel he often refers to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved”.   

     Many people have wondered over the centuries why John makes such a point of depicting himself as The Beloved Disciple.  On one level, of course, it must reflect his actual experience.  He mentions it frequently and pointedly enough, however, that it seems that there must be more to it.  And so there is: as Edward Sri explains [full article here]:

He represents the ideal disciple.  The beloved disciple is the one who is close to Jesus, leaning on his master’s breast at the last supper (John 13:25).  He is the one Apostle who remains with Jesus even in the face of Christ’s suffering and persecution – while the other Apostles fled, only the beloved disciple followed Jesus all the way to the cross (John 19:26).

     I want to focus on this last point, because so many people are suffering in various ways - in my home right now we are praying for a number of families who are experiencing illness, employment problems, divorce, and other hardships. Modern mental health professionals confirm the words that Charles Dickens put in the mouth of one of his characters in A Christmas Carol more than a century and a half ago: “it is at Christmastime that want is most keenly felt”.  This is a very hard time of year for our brothers and sisters who are in distress. I think the passage from John’s Gospel at the top of this post has a special import for those who find themselves standing at the Foot of The Cross in the midst of this festive season: all who join their suffering to His are his Beloved Disciples; the Mother of Jesus is your mother, and Christ your Brother suffers with you.  

May God's blessing be on you all this Christmas!