Love Among the Ruins

One of the deeper truths of God is that he can turn all things to good. For example, so many people complain about the reality that the good (or sometimes the merely innocent) suffer from the effects of evil in our world. They think that there is something unjust about a God who will allow his sun to shine and his rain to fall indiscriminately on the good and the bad. They reject the claim that we are called to emulate God in this.

Evil is indeed heartbreaking. And yet, in the indiscriminate suffering that evil inflicts, we find a deep and lasting truth. We are all one Body in Christ. The evil that one of us does is in effect a corporate evil. The good that one of us does is a corporate good. The punishment and the rewards, the effects of sin are also corporate.

Sometimes I dwell on this truth. If the good could not suffer for the sins of others, there would be no possibility of Salvation. An Innocent suffering the sins of the guilty in reparation for those sins is the very loophole of our salvation.

Each time, some one argues that innocent suffering refutes a loving God, I am stunned anew at how innocent suffering is the definitive act of our loving God.