Did we deserve this disaster?

I ask this question of myself, on behalf of the many victims of loss I have encountered over the years. Most recently, a devastating hailstorm wiped out the corn and bean crops over a wide area northwest of Cooperstown, the community I currently serve. It was heartbreaking to view the barren fields as I drove to visit some of my own parish members from St Lawrence of Jessie. There will most likely be insurance adjustments, but the loss of time, energy, and finances invested in their agricultural endeavors can never be fully recovered.

We experience the pains of loss in many ways. Fires, floods, tornadoes, and other destructive forces can devastate the homes and property we have labored life-long to secure. While these can eventually be replaced, there is no recovery of the lives of the loved ones we lose to death. We most especially grieve those we lose far too early to sudden fatal illness, accident, and perhaps even suicide or homicide. Daily news reports remind us of our collective vulnerability to such loss.

Where is God in all of this? How do we respond? Is God punishing us for some misdeed? Do we harbor anger against our Creator for allowing, if not causing, such disaster? Take note of the Book of Job, which offers a faith perspective on these very questions. Job, a just man, had done nothing wrong to deserve his devastating losses of personal health, family, and property. God allowed Satan to test him, trusting his servant Job to remain faithful.

Our personal losses become moments of trial like unto that of Job. When put to the test, we may either fold up our flimsy tent of faith, or shore up the foundation of a house built on rock. Jesus himself assures us that the evils we suffer are not necessarily a temporal punishment for sin.

“Those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did” (Luke 13:4-5)!

So, on the one hand, we need not punish ourselves with guilt nor harbor anger against God who permits such things to happen. On the other hand, we need to use such occasions of temporary loss to reevaluate our relationship with God, and cling ever more closely to the only one who can save us from the ultimate disaster of the loss of eternal life in heaven.

I recommend the prayer of the Rosary, particularly the Sorrowful Mysteries, as well as the Divine Mercy Chaplet, when we encounter personal devastation. We can go with Christ into the Garden of Gethsemane to share in his agony. We may experience his pain while tethered to the pillar of our own scourging. In his crowning with thorns, he identifies with us in every thorn of mental anguish plunged into our skulls today. His bearing of the cross on the road to Calvary offers consolation to us who bear the heavy load of our current catastrophe. 

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light” (Matt. 11:28-30).

Christ, from the cross to which he was nailed, entrusted John to the care of his mother Mary, and mother Mary to the care of his beloved disciple John. We can entrust our concerns to the watchful care of Mary, our spiritual mother, in the recitation of those five decades. 

Jesus, at his last breath, cried out from the cross, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). Every loved one who passes away, while gone from our midst, enjoys the gift of an immortal soul joined with the Risen Christ in the communion of saints in heaven, or perhaps with the souls of Purgatory. In either case, it is a holy and noble thought to offer Masses in their intention, “with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness” (2 Macc 12:45).

In every case of catastrophic loss, we do well to thank God for the life we still enjoy, and beg in suppliant prayer, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” It is in our moments of greatest vulnerability and weakness that God will come to the aid of his heavily burdened children.