Gospel, Homily and Coffee

One of the more difficult aspects of priestly ministry, at least for me, is when people are confronted with suffering and tragedy, and they want to know “why?” Why did my teenage daughter die in the car accident? Why does my parent have alzheimer's? Why do kids get massacred in schools? Why do people hate each other? Why does this bad person have it so easy? Is this God’s will?   Is this God punishing me?  Is this God testing us? There is real pain behind these words, and the man in me wants to fix the hurt right away...but...it is not that easy. Yet, we have hope.   It is the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ, of which we are in the process of preparing to celebrate. We have the suffering, death and resurrection of the Son of God, and therein lies the mystery of suffering, and the freedom from being controlled by the badness and evil in the world. There is that concise statement from St. Paul who clearly states that God is for us. ...