Father Spitzer’s Universe - 2017-11-08 - Why The All-loving God Allows Suffering Pt. 1

[Music] [Music] hello and welcome once again to father Spitzer's universe where no man has gone before and I'm Doug Keck your host coming to you from our EWTN studios in the heart of Irondale Alabama where Mother Angelica began at all Mother Angelica way remember you're a big part of this show send us your emails and so your those questions and check us out on Facebook send us a tweet on Twitter and for all things father Spitzer there's one place to go it's the magic Center website mantis Center one word.com and as we continue marching through his book today's topic chapter 10 coming to the end of this book why the all loving God allows suffering and that has to be a question I think on everybody's mind on a regular basis throughout our 10 year here on this program and there's some great new books coming out from father Spitzer of great shows but we also have great publications coming from EWTN a new book from our great friend father Charles Connor and pictured on your screen a history of Catholicism in a13 College the title is pioneer priests and makeshift altars again available to a religious catalogue by our good friend father Charles Connor he's really a great great historian and coming up look for the fall 2017 General Assembly beginning Sunday November 12th through Tuesday November 14th full coverage starting with the mass on Sunday it is the bishops conference we bring it to you sans commentaries so you can take it in as it occurs kind of c-span like we call it and don't forget father Spitzer he's been on the network for years he's got some wonderful series here as one as you can see entitled the heavens proclaim the glory of God quite prolific check it out again through our religious catalogue and speaking of that let us check out father Spitzer from OS Coast studios out in Orange County California where Christ Cathedral is located a beautiful campus there and coming into focus the father Spitzer welcome father great to see you again great to be with you again Doug good to see you and and of course we start off our programs now with with prayer and I just wanted to mention that a good friend of ours a grace MacKinnon longtime EWTN personality there's a shot of grace a real warrior for Christ is very ill and maybe dying and we wanted to offer up some prayers for her and remind her that and assure her of our prayers and that we haven't forgotten all she's done for Christ in his church so if you like the leader's father you bet in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen Heavenly Father we ask you to guide us as we move into this domain of suffering probe the depth the mystery the opportunities in it that you have prepared for us to lead us to salvation the purification of our love and the depth of faith we ask you to Lord to bless all those in special need at this time the especially grace MacKinnon and her illness please give her consolation in peace as well as healing if it be your will and please Lord continue to bless all those who suffer near San Antonio from that crisis that just occurred at the Baptist Church and and help them especially the families who've been devastated in the town there to recover through their faith and and through the consolation of your peace we ask all of these things through Jesus Christ our Lord amen name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen amen and of course we're continuing on with father's book the light shines on in the darkness again we've got chapter ten is what we're going to be dealing with but first we're to be talking about some of the questions you've sent in to us over the last couple of weeks first half of the show and then we'll get to the book in the second half as we have so let's get started you ready father yes I am okay dear father Spitzer we know a little of what Jesus looked like in his time like the Apostles etc and of course you would say by the shroud but when we hear the word God quote-unquote how are we to visualize God even though our Lord said to his disciples he who has seen me has seen the father and this is Ronnie from Sacramento so does that mean then the image of the shroud of Jesus is what we should think of when we think of God the Father how does that work now it's a great question Ronnie well first of all the image on the shroud is the image of Jesus in his incarnate human nature so we don't want to say that is the image of His divine nature maybe the best way of thinking about it Ronnie is remember as you know there are three persons and one God and and as I've said before on this program we might view a person as like a self-consciousness that's using the one infinite divine power and nature so self-consciousness right is an awareness of an awareness that that's what makes you aware of yourself and aware of your own awareness and in fact aware of your self-awareness and so what we what we say in in Christianity trying to explain the revelation of Jesus is that Jesus is one of the second of these self consciousnesses called the beloved and-and-and the Sun and that self-consciousness right enters into human nature and when it enters into human nature that human nature looks like the image of Jesus on the Shroud of Turin and so you can get a very good image of his human manifestation is human nature his human appearance that has his divine person in it however you're not getting his divine nature and you're not getting an image of his divine person using that one infinite divine power and nature you can't even get an image of it because it's infinite and infinite as you know means it has no restrictions or boundaries of any kind and therefore it's not subject to space or time and if it's not subject to space or time it truly in its infinity in its unrestricted miss there can't be an image of it so it's completely impossible to get an image of Jesus's divine person in his divine nature however you can certainly the image of Jesus is divine person in his human nature and remember that divine person is not an infinity it's his self-consciousness which has entered into a finite human nature I hope that helps Ronnie run let me ask you Father and talking about that Soaker at the Transfiguration what would the apostles who were there have seen our Lord would what how would they have seen him yeah that would have been in his glorified or spiritual body so the Transfiguration is a prefigurement of the glorification of jesus's human nature and remember as we were going through the the shroud evidence you know that in order to produce the image on the shroud you would need write the several billion watts of light energy and in order to produce that for 140 billions of a second well that's way too powerful for the Apostles to have seen that but so what we might call the Transfiguration then is it's sort of a toned-down prefigurement of the glorification of jesus's human nature or his human body so that's what they saw and of course it certainly had the you know the you know continuity with his his fleshly body but also it was brought to a spiritual and glorified and powerful and light-filled perfection in that moment but not the one that took place at the resurrection because if if they had seen that frankly they would have come out completely blind not to mention fried so I mean it would have been very diligent it would have blinded them okay very good let's move ahead question number two this is an email that came in to us do you father Spitzer I have a returning Catholic friend who is battling cancer she does lymphatic massage and I've never heard of this but which in her words will speed up her cancer to stage four so she can die quicker I feel uncomfortable with attitude and have told it but once again today she brought it up what should I do in this actually Philomena from Australia I'd never heard of that procedure so yeah well Philomena you know although this is not technically speaking a form of assisted suicide right where you're actually killing the person what you're doing there is you're actually speeding up the the growth of the cancer intentionally to reach the goal of death normally you know we would as Catholics right we have to put our trust in God we can't be actually kind of trying to speed up the process of death intentionally because we believe that the process of death has so much to offer us in terms of opportunities that you know in terms of the legacy we want to leave and what are some of those opportunities again just to review from a previous show but the first of course is there's the opportunity to grow in faith and dependence upon God we know that the dying process and even the prolongation of the dying process really helps us to grow in faith and there's a lot of excellent evidence for this right beyond you know the Spitz Arian you know assertion on this program there's really good evidence that people do grow in faith through the dying process the second area is there's so many opportunities for us to reconcile with our friends and our families and to tell our friends and our families what we really mean you know you know and what they mean to us and how important they are to us and how much they are loved by us these are opportunities to demonstrate that again and again and the dying process really is important number three to impart the wisdom that we want to give about life and about the dying process that takes place even as we are undergoing the challenges of dying you know from a lymphatic Elam lymphatic cancer and so that's another you know area where we want to share our spiritual insights we want to deepen people and this you know my grandfather was able to do this so effectively with my own brothers and sisters that were present at his death the other area I think that's important is the example of st. Therese of Lisieux to follow her in her example that was a very prolonged painful dying process they didn't have the pain protocols that your friend has Philomena and so you know right now there are pain protocols to deal with lymphatic cancer very very well so I'm not sure why she wants to speed up the process of dying when there are so many good opportunities that can come from it so just tell her you know don't be in such a rush but you know start looking for the opportunities especially to offer this up for her family offer up her challenges or you know that the the kind of the slowness of that dying process but in the midst of all those challenges lots of grace to offer up you know and grace to help her family lots of opportunities grow in faith lots of opportunities convey forgiveness reconciliation love and wisdom so of course the dying process this is some of the best time in our lives even though we may not have all the you know ambulatory abilities and everything else that we'd want or you know that quickness of mind and so forth because of the cancer treatments and the pain protocols nevertheless we can share so much deep wisdom and love and reconciliation and faith with our relatives and grow in faith ourselves and so much grace through the process of offering it up I hope that helps Philomena right and of course that's what we're talking a lot about and when we will be in the second part of the show from your book let's go to number three this one's a little unusual hi father and Doug of course I figured what this topic my name would come in I have often wondered should I forgive and try to love Satan and demons are you supposed to consider them our neighbors in that way at all Thank You Lorraine well Lorraine the the first thing of course is you know the Lord will forgive anyone who wants to be forgiven here's the problem with that you know that proposition is you know a satan has no desire in any way shape or form of being forgiven by you by God or by anyone else he considers that act of love to be repulsive now if you want to do that you know certainly there's nothing wrong with with doing that God would certainly forgive Satan in a heartbeat as Saint Agustin once put it you know saying you know God would forgive you know the first demon who said the first tear but that's not about to happen I mean they have made their decision from all eternity never to shed a tear certainly never you know to seek forgiveness or any kind of you know bending the knee before God they will never do that their knee is the only God that they want to bend before so the key thing is you know I would not do that that's the reason I would not do it is first of all of course they don't want it and they don't care about it but the second reason perhaps more importantly whenever you forgive somebody like that or try to love them you may open yourself to them in that moment of compassion and I can tell you this right now demons are looking for any opportunity to get to you and any kind of openness even though of course you're not opening yourself to their demonic power but you might open yourself to them unwittingly by trying to be compassionate to them you might just say you know Lord you know here's some prayers for that demon you know but I would never ever directly address that and even with any sense of compassion or love they have none for you protect yourself above all things but if you want to say to the Lord here are some prayers you know for those poor demons do with them what you want that you can certainly do that and just but make sure you're praying to God make sure you're not addressing anything to that demon or any kind of opening yourself inadvertently and naively to their power because they are very slippery indeed and they can in fact you know actually try to use even your good love as the occasion for your being undermined and and destroyed so be careful who you're dealing with but yes any prayer that you offer to the father that lord will know best what to do with those prayers right and there's plenty of other people in your life probably who could use your your prayers so maybe you shouldn't have focusing on them let me ask you a question related to that so the demons are the Fallen Angels so the Fallen Angels made a decision at one point in time to walk away from God right and so they had free will in a sense at one point but no longer have free will oh they have free will but you know the what you're saying is kind of the old problem of future contingents when they made their act of free will did they absolutely do it you know completely with respect to the temporality in which they live and that temporality of courses is like you know a completely different reality from the one that we live in and so yes they did it for the whole of eternity and of course as in as much as they did knowingly you make that decision for the whole of eternity right that they'd rather be their own God that they'd rather worship themselves that they'd rather dominate then than share that they'd rather hate rather than love that they'd rather as it were get to the top rather than be part of the community and especially that they would never in any way be subservient to God again you know all of that yes they made that for an eternity and they're never going to change their minds because of course you know changing minds you know for us in a very stretched out temporal the world which is very different from the Angels right that seems like well then that means that they could change their mind in the future their future is very different from our future and of course they've already made that decision and their decision is never gonna do it so you know there's there's not gonna be any changing of mine okay very good next up from Facebook father Spitzer can you explain redemptive suffering very Catholic approaches we're talking about how it applies to our Catholic understanding of the purging of sins in purgatory by that I mean does the suffering we as humans endure on earth and bracket it if truly offered up to share in Christ's passion on the cross have an effect on our souls in purgatory and this is from life absolutely oh is that Mike yeah Mike here's the the answer in in brief the answer is yes and resoundingly and and the reason is is because purgatory is a place as you put it of purgation or better maybe purification as the Catholic catechism would say and so that place of purification right what's what's being purified it's your love that's being purified right so you're being purified you know in your you know reliance and in and your integration to the community of God in other words purified in your faith you're being purified in your love you're being purified in your compassion you're being purified in your humility now dis suffering helped you know to purify us and humility and compassion our reliance on God and and and the other dimensions of love absolutely it helps us I mean in my own life I can tell you this right now you know as I wrestle with my my little eye disease here there's nothing that has helped me more with humility than being completely reliant on somebody else to lead me around by the elbow you know and and you know at first I'm yeah you know it's so humiliating that I didn't I was losing my autonomy now I don't think a thing of it I always just tell people thanks for being my trusty friend you know and helping me out here you know and honestly I mean I am just so amazed and they're filled with love I'm filled with gratitude which means filled with love I mean and and of course what's happening I grow in humility I grow in the acceptance of their help I grow in in love for them and they grow in love for me it's all helping in the process of purification so absolutely suffering helps us and of course does that lessen the amount that we would have to do in terms of purification of our loving purgatory absolutely it would lessen it the more we learn now though and the more we do now the less we have to do in the next life so a great question Mike and your answer that you intimated is correct yes it really helps very good and one of your many trusted friends has helped you get from one place to another was talking about the fact that sometimes it can be difficult getting from gate to gate in an airport because so many people recognize you now and stop you and want to talk to you yeah absolutely you know that is really true that's program I have to tell you it's it's made me a sort of a little bit of a recognised figure among Catholic people so you know every time I go through the Chicago Airport I'm not kidding you for all the people who said hello to me in the Chicago Airport and stopped and talked with me thank you very much I appreciate it because it happens just about every time and I'm in that Darden Chicago I don't just on the dart in Chicago anymore but it's a fine Chicago Airport there just about every week and a half to two weeks so it's always great seeing all of you say I say hello to me and I'll say hello back to you thank you very far here's another question for you as we head towards the bottom of the hour father Spitzer why do people wake up in the middle of the night now this could relate to you because you you wake up in the middle of night and get on a 335 but this person says and then get accosted with all sorts of negativity anxiety worries etc what's the best solution to this if the negativity keeps a person from falling back to sleep thank it is Eric from Kalamazoo yeah you know Eric as you probably recognize and by the way I used to suffer from this I'd wake up in the middle of the night and it wouldn't just be I've got to do X Y & Z tomorrow morning right now I still do that and a lot of the times I get a lot of inspiration from God when I'm thinking about X Y & Z but if I'm waking up in the middle of the night with you know that guy's a rotten bum and this thing that happened that was unjust and now I'm really furious about this other thing and I'm fearful that we don't have enough money and bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla when I'm waking up with the usual things of fear depression anxiety and anger that's not the good spirit mm-hmm that's either something going on in my subconscious mind or I'm not putting my trust in God and if that's coming out of my subconscious mind and believe me the evil spirit is going to stoke that baby all the way and he's going to stoke it to the point where I'm just sitting there you know you know you know tither you know at night either angry or fearful or whatever it might be the one thing you can really do that by the way notice the next morning that after all that fretting and anxiety you hardly remember what you were fretting innings and anxious about okay that just tells you how much all that fretting is worth you're not getting a lot of good creative work done now sometimes if you start getting a creative insight on how to solve a problem that you're angry about or solve something that you're fearful about okay that that might be very productive and and I'd say go with it but if nothing productive is coming from it I would say that's you know a destructive thing it's coming being stoked by the evil spirit and my thought would be take out your rosary just I put mine under my pillow and just take it out and I would just start with a couple of slow our fathers and you know between those slow our fathers before you begin right just say Lord Jesus I place my trust in you now those thoughts kind of want to come back into you right and just keep insisting Lord Jesus I put my trust in you and then of course as you begin to say those Hail Marys you know sometimes I start him off with gentle Mary for whatever reason it helps me focus on her and who she is you know Hale of course just means you know your ears almost saying hi to them you're you're acknowledging their presence but but when you say gentle Mary sometimes you know and gentle Mary full of grace the Lord is with you and I do that it actually focuses me on her and on her consolation so and as I say about five or six of those Hail Marys really trying to concentrate on the words and beginning with gentle Mary honestly I just start going back to sleep again and I start letting it go into God's hands so just maybe you know pull out you know the rosary keep it in your hand even if you fall asleep with the rosary in your hand just keep it in your hand a couple of our fathers keep interspersing Lord Jesus I place my trust in you after those Our Fathers as many times as it takes so you get to the point where you can start praying those Hail Marys and start with gentle Mary full of grace the Lord is with and just start there and just pray a few more Hail Marys and I think if you're anything like me anyway it'll start working and you'll be kind of back into slumber in the the love of Mary and the love of the Lord fairly quickly okay very good and just before we go to the break let's try and squeeze in another question an email we got father how do we reconcile the perplexing phenomenon of evangelizing versus avoiding evil and bad people we are called to evangelize but those who need evangelization most are often just calling wicked people and people found it wicked places is there an easy answer to this Matt from San Francisco in California okay men here's the quick solution go back to Jesus's expression right do not throw your per rolls before swine now I know that sounds you know today you know the swine are just an image that he's using because it's a typical agrarian image in the culture in which he's living he's not saying evil people are pigs but he's trying to do is give an analogy like a rabbi would give an analogy and what he's trying to say is you know that if you throw those good beautiful pearls you know before swine they don't know any better they're gonna just trample them under foot so the thing is is you have to be selective about who you're going to evangelize now you might say well I'm going to pick the most evil of people before you make that decision think be prudent is there anybody in the middle ground and and I call it the tremendous middle ground the huge number of people who are not out there really trying to destroy other people to do a number on other people your right to to be pushing drugs to be murderous to be you know literally taking the fortunes of widows and orphans and so forth and so on so you just put that group aside for just a moment you know that's gonna take some additional help from God to bring them around that's not your you know Providence to bring them around you know God's gonna have to probably introduce some suffering God's gonna have to introduce some special Grace's to bring them around what you you concentrate on what you can really do and what can you really do that I tell you Matt if you start looking there's all kinds of people out there who are in that middle ground who are actually the ones who are being right now brought under the influence of some of these people who are or rather wicked couldn't get with their them and actually you know start responding to them start bringing to them I you know if they've got intellectual questions I beg you just go to our seven essential modules which are a bunch of powerpoints that are actually voiceover they're read to you with embedded videos in them just go to those on we're going to be posting them on our website very very quickly just go to them and and just you know sort of play them and with your friends do the evangelization with them they're the ones who can really open up to it again they're the ones who are vulnerable they're the ones who have not taken the deeper plunge and let God work with those other ones who as you described it are really they have taken the deeper plunge right into darkness they really are completely unsusceptible of evangelization because honestly you will be throwing your pearls before swine and they'll just trample that them underfoot right and you're just gonna set yourself up for failure and then despair and disappointment and you may give up so we're gonna take a break with that point being made with father Spitzer we'll join you momentarily as we continue here in the midst of father Spitzer's universe where faith and reason intersect on a weekly basis we're looking for your question stay with us much more ahead I'm gonna be talking about the light shines on in the darkness chapter 10 when we come back [Music] and we see you are back with us here in the midst of father Spitzer's universe exploring the book the light shines on in the darkness by father Spitzer specifically chapter 10 we'll get into that right now as we revisit with father coming to us live from the West Coast chapter 10 why the all loving God allows suffering I think that probably has to be the most often cited question or concerns so many people have especially I think today and you talk about it and the chapter we'll get into it especially with people today younger people today who who look and say well how could this possibly work this way it just doesn't seem to be fair and the word fair has become an immuno a major theme of most people in life today about whether something is fair enough but you say right in the beginning you quote Romans 8:28 we know that and every God works for good with those who love him who are called according to his purpose I guess the question would be you put it there obviously we're talking about suffering so that seems counterintuitive yeah how could we be so sure that that's actually true I don't know what scripture so we believe it but do we see it lived out that way yeah I think you know if you look at the lives of the Saints I'm you know first of all what's the problem you know when people say suffering and love are incompatible with one another they're not looking at three Christian realities you know that really I think are validated by the resurrection of Jesus himself and that resurrection in turn validated by not just the evidence on the Shroud of Turin but the near-death experiences and so many other things that we've gone through but what are the three principles that they're neglecting when they when they make that inference which is a false inference but suffering in love are incompatible that the first thing is that they're not looking at things in terms of the resurrection that that suffering it could be very very helpful toward a salvation and so of course if suffering is helpful toward salvation then of course God's not going to alleviate suffering right away because remember our formula no he's suffering Plus faith leads to the purification of faith and love and ultimately to salvation just exactly what we were talking about in the previous segment you know on you know it can suffering less than the time of purgatory absolutely but more than that it can actually turn our whole lives around and bring us from a course of you know self-destruction self idolatry actually to a course of resurrection salvation the second fact that people are ignoring you know is there are all kinds of opportunities in suffering not just for ourselves but for others that we can help all kinds of opportunities that will not only lead us to salvation but opportunities to really purify our our love and our faith which will help us in this life help us to be better people in this life help us to do more good in this life help us to be more compassionate in this life so it's not just oriented toward salvation but suffering has all kinds of opportunities for this life right to grow and love to grow in humility to grow in compassion which of course transforms all of our actions not only towards our family and our friends but of course toward all kinds of other people that we might serve in the future that we've never even thought about right now the third area that that really is important and people just don't think about sometimes is they don't think about the fact that we can offer those sufferings up and that those then that that salvation you know that that you know we can affect or the good of the church we can affect or that you know the you know the prayer for people in purgatory or for our relatives and friends here on earth that all of these things are there are efficacious graces that really do come out of suffering and I believe I've seen it in my own life because of course I've seen people who've been greatly assisted I'd like to think that the sufferings I've offered up on their behalf actually were helpful for them so you know and I believe that I totally believe it and why do I believe it be these are the promises of Jesus Christ and why do I believe the promises of Jesus Christ well I believe it because of course I believe it because the church the Church teaches it I believe it because the Apostles wrote about it and I believe their word because I really do believe that they weren't trying to just convince me they were trying to look after the good of my soul in the direct way that Jesus expressed it I think also I believe it for a variety of other kinds of external reasons where I can get kind of my own scientific point of view to validate you know and and help people to see it if they if they if they're not going to take the word of the church and the apostles at face value God has not left us bereft of other evidence there is that evidence from the Shroud of Turin that we just talked about and there's the evidence from near-death experiences which is really quite profound indeed from good medical studies a peer-reviewed medical studies of those experiences that show you know the the you know and anticipate a life of love and and the eradication is suffering in life to come and there are also all kinds of new you know of scientifically validated miracles associated not only with miracle with Mary excuse me and and with the Saints but also now the Eucharist and many other scientifically validated miracles so these things are out there you know there are all kinds of ways of you know taking you know another approach to validating Jesus Christ is the Lord and Jesus Christ promised these things and so I take it at face value and frankly in my own life I have the experience and the validation of knowing a that my suffering has led me to salvation it has gotten me off of destructive and stupid paths when I was a young man and gotten me on the better paths and of course I can tell you for a fact that it has helped me to purify my love and my faith in this life which is not only helped me to salvation but completely altered the quality of the work I do and the relationships that I have in this life and I can tell you with certainty that I have seen how my own offering of my sufferings led to graces for people that I prayed for and I think were very much helped and were in fact helped by God by grace you know not just toward happiness level 1 & 2 but toward happiness levels 3 and 4 they became more contributed they became happier and and of course much more faith filled and I believe that my person my offering of suffering had something to do it so I really do think all there's all kinds of evidence you know to sustain that belief and that's that's the short answer believe me there's a much longer where's a longer chapter to just read the whole book there you go always pitching there you go so let me ask you so moving into the book you say there are three major sources of suffering none of them directly caused by God he took of a suffering caused by our decisions suffering caused by other people suffering caused by natural forces though sometimes natural forces are referred legally to being acts of God but let me ask you since you say there are three major sources of suffering none of them directly caused by God so are there then suffering that is directly caused by God I believe that on occasion there is but I think that God does it only in cases of people who are going to destroy themselves right and so he he's not going to put in a kind of suffering that's going to you know force them out of their freedom you know force them under compulsion to convert or change their mind but what he does is he gives kind of suffering that that would you know you know work within their own freedom to bring them around now st. Paul he had obviously st. Paul was a very devoted Pharisee right he had a very strong faith life he had a very strong desire to please God but boy was he miss oriented I mean so he thinks he's actually pleasing God by killing Christians when he's right before it's conversion when he still saw and of course Jesus has to sort of stop that in a hurry and when he does stop it in a hurry he kind of has to give Paul a real shall we call it frying insight into his presence and lordship to the point where Paul looks up and goes who are you sir and of course he says I am Jesus and you're persecuting me that's how I put the emphasis anyway and of course you know Paul goes oops got the point so of course then after his healing Paul immediately goes into the desert for three years in Arabia and he has to process this because he's gotten kip-up so much of his former ways but integrate all of that Judaism which is still part of Christianity into the Christian faith for the Gentiles and of course he sees himself you know even after the Arabia experience as the guy to go to the Gentiles precisely the impetus that Jesus wanted him to have and with leading him to by that experience so you know let's call that you know you know Paul didn't like blindness right that was a formless up any more than I like it right and so of course it's a form of suffering but it's one that really keeps him oriented and as he says he he he you know likes it so I do think God did directly cause that to Paul I think there are other instances of direct causes of suffering you know where God really is trying to you know push a person around you know do I think that maybe some of Hitler's nightmares that he experienced are Stalin's nightmares I said Elizabeth the first nightmares could that have come not from the devil but from God himself trying to sort of you know the Holy Spirit saying here's what you're doing on you know this is the darkness you're producing you know and in hunting them and yes maybe so maybe so it's entirely possible but for the vast majority of us yeah that would be the suffering that comes from our own decisions from other human beings causing suffering to us and from natural cause a shin right the blind forces of nature as we might say in a scientific worldview okay let me ask you this a little off topic but just thinking about what you said now our Lord you know on the road to Damascus Paul sees our Lord and then talks him now do we think that Paul ever saw Jesus before he was resurrected I mean in his time in Jerusalem would he have seen it or was that all post facto to the resurrection well Paul says oh no he did not no he did not see Jesus prior to the rise exactly I didn't fill it and that's why Paul says as one born out of due course right right so I you know I remember in 1 Corinthians 15 when he's going through the list of witnesses after he mentions the 500 of the brethren most of whom are still alive though some have fallen asleep last of all then he appeared to all the disciples and last of all he appeared to me as one born out of due course so he's a post resurrection guy completely ok ok that's what I thought but I figured I'd ask you there's another elsewhere in the book as we move a little just a little bit further on the next page thus we can only there can only be one kind of suffering you say that is completely tragic so what is the one kind of suffering that's completely tragic that's the kind of suffering where a person instead of using all of the opportunities and suffering everything that you know can come from suffering you know to lead to their salvation they reject it all right and so you know if if basically you know suffering doesn't leave you know to somebody choosing egocentricity domination and self worship right over love right suffering doesn't do that out but if somebody chooses to continue moving on the course to you know basically hell if I might use the word basically to you know the place where self-destructiveness where other destructiveness were egocentricity domination of others and you know self worship is praised if I can put it that way namely hell if suffering could not prevent that person from you know making such a horribly egotistical choice that would lead ultimately to you know a kind of eternal suffering because remember you know in Hell there there is there is really the suffering of loneliness even though it is self willed I'd rather be lonely than be nice I'd rather be lonely and in emptiness than have to love somebody I'd rather be lonely and and and in emptiness and alienation and in complete conflict with the people around me in this place of misery than to actually give up worshiping myself I'd you know so I mean it's like it's a crazy choice but the that kind of pain which I can just call the pain of hell that's the one that's tragic because that's the one that's freely chosen it's it's it's brought upon us completely by ourselves and of course God you know doesn't want to do that to anyone as I've said many times in this show God doesn't send anyone to hell hell as the Catholic catechism defines it is freely chosen by us hell is a place right that is self the termined right it is and and and so of course we have to you know recollect on that for a moment and yeah is that tragic yes it's terribly tragic that anyone would choose hell over love anyone would choose emptiness over a compassion you know you know as a Gustin would say you know once again the devil that sheds the first tear would be in heaven but the devil isn't going to shed a tear mhm that's the problem what do you think sometimes today people would say well of course I'm not going to choose hell and if by mistake I chose hell it's because I didn't realize it was hell yeah I would say that that's not possible because God would make sure that you had adequate what's called sufficient reflection so that when you're making that choice you have what's called full consent of the will remember those two conditions for a mortal sin you have to have sufficient reflection sufficient reflection means sufficient knowledge sufficient awareness you know what you're doing right and the other means full consent of the world that means no impediment to the free use of your will and now there's many impediments it could be habitual impediment it could be an addiction impediment it could be a psychological impediment right we've gone through these before but and we can go through them again but that the main thing though is yeah God's not gonna let anybody choose hell as it were choose without sufficient reflection and full consent of the will now if that is the case then that person you know the tragedy of that person is they're looking straight on at that and they've got a choice do I want to be compassionate to others or do I want to get the advantage over others I'm going to choose advantage I know there's gonna be emptiness alienation loneliness etc but I gotta say you know just a joy dominating somebody means so much more to me right so I'm gonna choose it right and you can see the delay you know of a person who has lived a life where they have been dominating others right lived a life where they've been doing things that have been terribly destructive or lived a life where they have been worshipping themselves or lived a life where you know they're the egocentricity is just overcoming any kind of act of compassion well if you're living that life you know and it comes down to the final moment and you're just sitting there going what am I gonna do okay I know there's gonna be emptiness alienation loneliness and all kinds right you know there's gonna be you know dark outside as Jesus describes it you know there's gonna be wailing and grinding of teeth but you know I gotta say the advantages of just being a domineering narcissistic egocentric and self worshiping bum are really just too great an advantage I'll take the emptiness alienation loneliness and the absence of love and God and you go I would never do that but you know if you really think about it some people could do that if that's the way they've been oriented for their life and believe me I do still you know in my moments of conversion lots of really egocentric domineering all kinds of crazy things and of course I'm basically throwing myself on the mercy of God with that great prayer of the publican of this tax collector right have mercy on me Lord for I am a sinful man which I am and I'm trying to get back on track and I'm trying to do better and that's what we can do and that's our guarantee that's our ticket of course with the church and the sacraments that's our ticket for not making a crazy decision like that right at the end of our lives it seems like a lot of times you will hear in the world today you'll hear things about people are suffering under quote/unquote invincible ignorance and and and those kind of situations how much responsibility is there on the person who has this quote-unquote invincible ignorance to maybe convince themselves what they don't know yeah I would say you know that oh that answer that question could only come from God himself because only God can read the hearts of a human person and the responsibility for accepting you know you know God or you know looking into the possibility of God that really depends on you know the person themselves you know for example you know a couple of these atheists or scientists or intelligent folks you look at the household in which they grew up in right and and you just take a look at that and and they grew up with it just you know they were given a sense of God who is completely unjust and angry and just pounding on them and and so forth and so on well these people you know by the time they're done by the time they're eight years old mm-hmm you know their ability to freely want to pursue God has really been severely impaired no I I do believe that I also believe that that people who you know you know have had some severe severe challenges and you know in their early life beaten by their fathers or whatever again that because of the projection of the father image onto God might really severely impair their desire to want to find out about God God has compassion God is all-knowing God can read their hearts God can assign the degree of responsibility that they have to have however I would say this an answer to your question if people are free right if they could really I mean there if there aren't those kinds of of impediments you know to them you know wanting to seek God then and the impediments come from within myself like I'd rather be my own God thank you very much if that's the impediment yes then there is some responsibility for invincible ignorance I don't want to look at the evidence you know that trout the torrents wrong those near-death experience studies are wrong even though eighty percent of people are blind from birth can see you know they're wrong you know I'm just gonna tell you that all those miracles they're just wrong and those apostles I don't care what you say about it they're just wrong and they were lying to you no no if you're gonna do that and you do it out of you know a sense of I don't want to believe I'm never gonna bend my knee that God I'm never gonna accept you know a sovereign in my own life beyond myself or I wanna dominate others because I am the best I really really am and just you know obviously I'm being hyperbolic here but I mean the main thing of course is like if we're doing that right I can assure you then there is responsibility for the ignorance that we display you know because of course this isn't about the way I was raised this isn't about you know being given a portrait or an image of God that is you know so you know terrifying that it can't possibly move toward them this isn't about having you know a slight genetic defect you know at birth which causes right sometimes that extra Y chromosome a degree of aggressivity that that a person's just not avail you know of free tintin to get around right so God sees all that dough and he really does and we have to just trust that he really is the completely compassionate father of the prodigal son the completely compassionate judge and he would never ever judge us if we did not have sufficient reflection broad consent of the will and that choice toward hell that choice toward you know you know the the absence well with it with your with your full consent father I've got to tell you we're wrapping up the show because we almost run out of time of course and just before we go just make sure that we'd like to have your blessing you would absolutely and bow your heads and pray for God's blessing and may Almighty God sent His Holy Spirit down upon you to inspire you and to guide you so that you might truly know his love we know his will for you truly know how he is guiding you particularly guiding you through your suffering to get the insight into how those sufferings might truly be opportunities not only for your salvation not only to be offered up for your family members and friends but also for how it might transform you in this life and in the ministries and love that you pursue may Almighty God bless you all father and Son and Holy Spirit amen thank you so much father till next time we shall see you next week and of course for our audience don't forget father Spitzer's teaching DVD collections available through the EWTN religious catalogue this one is the heavens proclaim the glory of God and of course we've got more books too coming our way from our EWTN publishing is the Dan Burks book the contempt of rosaries can see very it's already a Catholic bestseller check it out and don't forget w10 will be there covering the fall 2017 General Assembly of the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops that's Sunday the 12th as you can see beginning there with the mass and next week we'll be talking again about the chapter having to do with why the all loving God allows suffering one of the great questions of our faith make sure you're with us next week when we revisit father Spitzer's universe at the intersection of faith and reason is where you'll find us thanks [Music] [Applause] Oh

Channel: EWTN

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Length: 57min 14sec (3434 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 09 2017