"Do you think they were more guilty than anyone else?" Matthew 4

Third Sunday of Lent
Fr. Mark Payne, O.S.B.

Given the horrible events in Madrid this week, we might want to ask God the same question that people asked Jesus in he Gospel today . Were the people who died in the bombings more evil than those who survived? And what about the people who were not on the trains that day even though they usually take those trains? Were these lucky people saved by God that day by a special act of grace? When Jesus was asked about an attack by Roman troops on some Jews in Galilee and about a fallen tower in Siloam, Jesus does not give as clear an answer to our question as we might like. We know that bad things do happen to people who lie and cheat and steal. We also know that bad things happen to good people and we know that some bad people seem to completely escape the consequences of their evildoing.

Jesus' answer to people who approached him did not really make the matter as clear as we would like. No, Jesus said, those who were killed by the soldiers, those killed by the falling tower, and we can add: those killed by the bombs in Madrid: These victims were not more guilty than those of us who managed to live through the whole of last week. But Jesus also insisted that what happens in the world is not completely chaotic or random. Much of the evil that happens to individual people in the world, is indeed the result of us all together not living the way that God has in mind for all of us to live.

Dying in a terrorist attack, or suffering from a delibitating disease, or losing one's home in a fire are not the worst things that can happen to a person. As sad and frightening are the bad things that happen to people around the world every day, the worst things that happen to us are spiritual evils. Evils that we may not even be aware of as they begin to get a hold on us. Jesus warning today is that many of the spiritual calamaties that discourage us are indeed our own fault; they are the result of decisions that we have made, even if not deliberately or even consciously.

Spiritual evils: such as insensitivity to the suffering of other people or a gloomy, fearful attitude towards life. Spiritual evils: such as feelings of hopelessness, despair, and darkness. Spiritual evils: such as jealousy and greed, or unwillingness to trust ourselves to God's merciful care. Spiritual evil is much more damaging and painful, much harder to bear than physical deprivation and suffering. In fact, we all know of people in situations much more difficult than our own, people who bear their sufferings with a remarkable calm; people who have a more cheerful and hopeful attitude than we could ever imagine for ourselves if we had to endure what they live with every day.

Moses, for example, could have just walked by that burning bush in the first reading today. That's curious, he might have said, as he continued on with the important chores of his daily life. Perhaps Moses was not the first person that God tried to approach with God's plan to rescue the Hebrew people from their slavery in Egypt. But Moses was alert, and he was open; Moses was sensitive to the movements of God in his spirit. This vulnerability to God's will and this trust in God's goodness was probably not an accident at all.

We cannot control the most important things that happen to us either in our worldly life or in our spiritual life. But it is in our power, Jesus points out today, it is well within our God-given power for us to recognize and to perform the good, even heroically if that is necessary. We can also prepare ourselves to recognize and turn our backs on evil. We can experience ourselves as joyful and even share with others the joy of knowing God's grace and forgiveness. We can learn to be certain of God's presence: in our own heart and the heart of all other people. Believing utterly in God's love for us, there is no evil in the world that can destroy our spirit or turn us away from continuing to trust in God and to love God's people.

This does not mean that our accepting Jesus challenge today will free us from all further suffering. It does not mean that living a spiritual life will prevent bad things from happening to us. Far from it. We know, in fact, that many wonderful Christians and other good people have suffered a great deal and sometimes they suffered precisely because they were good people. But Jesus does promise that those who trust in God will not live in fear, will not live in terror, in gloom, or despair. They will not suffer alone. Their sufferings, in fact, participate in the salvation and the transformation of the world. Like Jesus himself, the suffering of believers can also be a source of comfort and encouragement to people who do suffer calamities.

It is not what happens to us, Christianity insists, it is not what happens to us that really matters. What matters, and what we are hld accountable for, is how we receive what happens to us good or bad and what we do with it. What matters is how we treat other people when things, good or bad, happen to them. What matters is that each of us becomes a channel of God's healing and transforming love, come what may.