Father Spitzer’s Universe - 2017-11-15 - Why The All-loving God Allows Suffering Pt. 2

[Music] [Music] hello and welcome once again to father Spitzer's universe where no man has gone before I'm Doug Keck your host coming to you live from our EWTN studios in Irondale Alabama in the heart of the mothership as they would say as we journey through the universe of faith send us an email check us out on Facebook send us a tweet on Twitter and for all things that exist out there related to father Spitzer there's one place to go you go to the Magister website majus center.com that's majus enter one word.com and of course today's topic we're continuing on with chapter 10 of his book and the chapter is why the all loving God allows suffering one of the great questions of all time quite honestly and don't forget that we've got a book pioneer priests and makeshift altars coming out from EWTN publishing a history of Catholicism in the 13 colonies by our resident historian father Charles Connor what a great man and he does such a great job with Catholic history especially in the United States and speaking of history in the United States and in North America the beatification of father Solana's Casey is coming your way we're pleased during that to you on Saturday November 18th they're doing it at Ford Field in Detroit Michigan and this man truly we've seen on his way to beat the sainthood and I know father Benedict Groeschel of great memory was assured in his mind that that he was in fact a saint Solanas Casey and of course father Spitzer has been teaching us a lot as well in defense of God's likeness is one of the series he has done over the years here at EWTN and there's so many series along with so many books EWTN our see.com ET and our c-calm and you can find out what material we have available and of course now we turn once again as we do each week out to the west coast there and father Spitzer on the campus of Christ Cathedral in Orange County California which is the Diocese of Orange and thank you bishop fan for allowing us to have our studios located there and once again great to see you father Spitzer great to be with you too Doug and of course we got the light shines on in the darkness that's the book we'll be talking about and the chapter 10 will continue on today and as always let's start things off with with a prayer in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen Heavenly Father we ask you to send your holy spirit down upon us to guide us inspire us and protect us as we try to probe our own suffering and know how you are leading us know your will for us help us to understand to the great wisdom that we can understand and that we cannot understand that moves you to allow that suffering in our lives so that we might be saved purified in our love and brought to perfection in you we ask all of these things through Jesus Christ our Lord amen a Mary seat of wisdom pray for us name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen amen and we pray for all of those who've suffered in this last year certainly with all the events that have happened in nature the you know Puerto Rico and in Houston in Florida etc and of course even some of the tragic things that have happened between terrorism and the shootings that occur in in Texas so we want to keep all those people and their souls in our prayers so let's move on to our first question dear father Spitzer this is an email I absolutely love to learn from you on a recent show you made a remark about having many chances in this life and quote-unquote the next what did you mean by this I thought our chances with God ended with our final breath thanks and God bless this is Christina from Philadelphia right well Christina you know of course this goes back to the Catholic doctrine of purgatory and by chances that we're not talking about to decide whether we want to go to heaven or whether we would prefer hell last week we were talking a little bit about that choice that chance is over a you know at this lifetime however in the next life we have a chance of course for purification on a grand level now there are some people who think that you know there are certainly possibilities to be forgiven and in the next life and that goes back to Matthew I'm forget the chapter number now where Jesus is talking about the sin of blasphemy and you might remember that he said that the sin against the Holy Spirit right will not be forgiven in this life or the next implying that there would be some kind of forgiveness in the next life except of course for that particular sin which is to claim that the Holy Spirit is actually Satan so but that would be the the main reason for thinking that and of course purgatory offers us a huge number of varieties of opportunities for purification right and I also think I remember I think possibly in in Sister Faustina's diary there's some discussion of uh-huh the idea of our Lord coming to a person during the dying process or immediately following the dying process and maybe once again offering God's mercy I think three times or something like that so yeah I'm back be relating to that as well I certainly wouldn't preclude it and of course Jesus mentions forgiveness in the next life so I have to believe that something he had something on his mind there although I'm not sure altogether what it was but always best to try and get the the repentance in now in this life rather than around for the next life right did you you know since you're always up on these scientific goings ons recently I read something it seemed to be indicating that they were saying that your consciousness or your awareness continues on after you quote-unquote died now we would probably say of course that makes sense but have you read anything recently where they've done some studies I mean yeah now of course the near-death studies that we talked about in previous episodes that clearly shows right you know if blind people can actually see during clinical death that shows that when you die your consciousness is going to continue and not only your consciousness but there will be some semblance of your extended body there will also you'll be able to see and to hear to remember to recall and of course to move and you will not be subject to the laws of physics so you can go through walls you can you know just defy gravity etcetera etc so the main thing is yes there's a huge amount of evidence for that from near-death experiences and there have been some very very recent studies done on near-death experiences but the most the big major study in 2014 done by dr. Samuel Parr Nia published in the journal resuscitation which is a peer-reviewed medical journal that study was done in 2014 what you might be thinking of is the studies of what's called terminal lucidity right and terminal lucidity is is a big area now that's that's being investigated because there are hundreds of cases where we now have MRIs of people who have had severe dementia or Alzheimer's for many many years and as you know the brain of those people becomes severely atrophied and when that happens right the the well the the the cerebral cortex in the frontal cortex can actually be reduced in size you know so considerably that there's almost nothing left of it yet one week to one before they die these people without any cranial capacity without a physical brain to do the thinking these people wake up and they suddenly go oh my gosh you know I you know I need to see the following 10 people I need to get my will in order there is logical and is analytical about all these things they need to do there have all the compassion and the wisdom they once had and they're they're talking to their relatives about what's happened to them and what's going to happen to them and all the various events that have taken place in their life and this is like it happening without a brain everything took two you know a cerebral cortex where all the the major thinking functions are going on it's completely severely atrophied and so of course you know people are saying I mean good physicians I mean at Harvard are saying we have no idea how they are doing this thinking and many of them are going on to say it's certainly not with the brain which of course leaves the question open then if it's not the brain then what you know what's driving that consciousness alright is the ground of consciousness and it would have to be a spiritual non material non cranial ground of consciousness and and I would call that obviously as a Catholic a soul main trans physical ground of consciousness that's precisely what we mean by it that can survive bodily death right ok very good let's go to one of our Facebook questions here that came in to us the Bible seems to say that suffering builds character of course we're talking about the whole idea of redemptive suffering however I think that prolonged suffering and stress may build character but where on the soul if not offered correctly and then more faith is needed cared a common father this is from Lucia Volusia Thanks sure ok Lucia this is basically the the response you're correct a lot of prolonged suffering can absolutely wear on the soul it absolutely can produce discouragement so suffering by its is not necessarily opportunistic for salvation remember our formula suffering plus faith that's what leads to the purification of faith in love that's what leads to our salvation that's what helps us to help others toward their salvation so you're absolutely right when you say war faith is needed and that's exactly remember what happened to st. Paul remember you know he has very prolonged suffering he's going gradually and gradually blinder and blinder this is my view and I think there's a lot of evidence for that in in the New Testament and as he's getting blinder you know he's he says he's he's reflecting on this and in the second letter to the curb to the Corinthians chapter 12 and he goes you know I was given a thorn in the flesh an angel of Satan to beat me mm-hmm to keep me from getting proud there's the operative word so he sees then that this suffering is very good for leading him towards humility but then he goes on and he says the more this keeps happening to me the more I have to rely on Christ and Christ if I allow Christ to grow stronger in me Christ will grow stronger in me I will grow weaker and he goes it's that's okay by me I don't need to be you know st. Paul the autonomous one I need to be st. Paul the saintly one I need to be st. Paul who's reliant on the Lord not st. Paul I'll take care of it myself thank you very much because I really am all that Paul fears that move and because he fears going in that direction he is thankful to God for that suffering he you know he says can I ask the Lord three times to remove this from me but he saw fit not to do so Paul sees then that God is gonna maintain it because it's gonna be good for him and and of course as we see in the mean then and that st. Paul of course you know maintains that blindness until of course his death and martyred him but he proclaims it all the way that's something which has really helped them but remember it's suffering plus faith and you're right extra faith is needed Lucia and with that extra faith then of course we can you know really you know be transformed in the love and the compassion of God just like Saint Paul was in in the compassion of Christ just like Saint Paul was and that's going to lead us to our salvation and help us to help others to their salvation mm-hmm how does one know let's say st. Paul s three times how does one know one's ones asking for lets relief from a situation that at some point I guess this is the way it's going to be should someone stop after three times is is that the magic number is it Justin or arsenal sense or how does one go about that yes three times by the way is not to be taken literally okay it's a Semitic expression very common Semitic expression during that time and it just simply means over and over and over again like a huge number of times so that's that's what it really means so I think Paul probably asked maybe hundreds if not thousands of times and then finally you know as Paul not being a nun break I just sort of says you know I'm discerning here but this is probably the Lord's will and so he he is very open you know he says I'm getting this huge benefit from it and I'm growing you know in in holiness and Christ is growing within me I'm okay with it and of course as we know that you know about 10 years after that he is put to death in Rome and and he of course you know who able to obtain the reward that he sought throughout his entire life that crown of salvation okay very good next up another question this is a short one but a good one on Facebook father are there ever times when suffering has no meaning or purpose god bless you and elysia yeah and ELISA the answer is yes but not because of the suffering only because there is no interpretation of the suffering to give it meaning so if we fail this is not intrinsic to the suffering itself so I mean whatever suffering there is whether it be grief whether it be deprivation whether it be weakness whether it be pain right whatever the kind of suffering there there may be right the key thing to remember is that we have to give that interpretation to our suffering to make it meaningful and I you know again if we do not give it you know interpretation if we don't look for any opportunities for our suffering if we don't offer up our suffering if we don't use our suffering as a lever to get us closer and closer to God into our salvation if we never use that suffering as an example to help others if we don't use that suffering for anything whatsoever and indeed if we never give it an interpretation or you can see any good coming out of it and for ourselves for anybody else for the kingdom of God if we just say there isn't any good that's going to come from this suffering and and we just say you know that's it well then yes suffering will turn in on you you will become bitter and isolated instead of using it as a lever to go outwards and help other people to the extent that you can and to impart wisdom and love to grow in love and salvation to give that salvific effective way if you don't do any of it mm-hmm it'll just turn in on you and the more it turns in on you the more you'll destroy yourself and that is really a meaningless suffering but it's up to us it's really a to us to give that interpretation of suffering where we can see some good coming on it for us and others and the kingdom of God and then in giving that interpretation we bring the full force of our faith to it and we bring that full force of faith to it it becomes really some of the most important things that ever happen to us and it challenges us to the most some of the most self sacrificial and noble things in our lives we can face things that you know we've never faced before a courage that we've never even seen in ourselves before and you know a fortitude that we've never you know seen in ourselves before and a faith that is far beyond the faith of the saints that we never even thought we were capable of before suddenly that suffering will elicit itself from us so that this suffering can become absolutely some of the best moments in our lives okay next up another email this time dear father Spitzer and Doug is there really such a thing as a quote/unquote victim soul chosen by God to suffer the carrying of extra heavy extra heavy cross if so how would someone know that they are a victim soul and do you have any advice for navigating through life as one thank you for your wonderful show and this is the rain so we hear that term victim soul sorely and from Catholic context we're talking about suffering so first of all I guess the questions are that are there such people maybe the question then would be why are there such people and how would one know if one was such a person yeah well a first Lorraine great question but the main thing to remember is in order for God to create a victim soul you have to be voluntarily open to it okay you know st. Therese of Lisieux is a victim soul right but she chose to be a victim so she chose to make her life as self sacrificial offering to God for the benefit of those who had no one to pray for them and the benefit of those who are truly you know even criminals and outcasts as well as the souls in purgatory and for the kingdom of God she chose that but no you can't have an involuntary victim soul so now if you think then the you know you were created and that God may be asking of you a kind of extraordinary suffering for which there is no kind of relief you could say okay Lord you know I I'll accept this and I'll do exactly what st. Therese of Lisieux did I'm gonna or st. Paul of the cross for that manner or right so many other great Saints I'm going to accept this suffering and I'm going to join it to the sufferings of your son and I'm going to offer it to you and could you please help not only my family and my friends but also would you please and help the souls in purgatory would you please help criminals who have no one to pray for them and would you please help you know the variety of other people right that st. Torres prays for and she took that by the way it's her life mission right when she was incapable of doing other things right and even in the convent the closer confident she's just you know almost reduced to being you know a flat on her back or sitting in a chair right in those moments is she chose to be the victim soul so answer to your question very briefly you can't have an involuntary victim soul but you surely can have a voluntary one so if you think that there is maybe that call of God to you in your life to offer that up you know on behalf of others and then you know if you willingly accept that you will be a victim soul by your own choice in trust of course of the loving God mmm-hmm now victims soul what about the phrase suffering soul of those interchangeable or those different yeah because of course you know the idea of suffering in in Jesus's view because right we're deriving that notion of victim from Jesus who is quoting Isaiah 52:13 through right isaiah 53:12 right so the sacrificial victim and Jesus is the one who makes him a himself excuse me a sacrificial victim at the Last Supper in the Holy Eucharist so it really a suffering person right who voluntarily chooses to offer up that suffering right is in a way a victim in imitation of Jesus okay a victim in the actual image and likeness of Jesus so they're kind of interchangeable and now suffering can be a much more general and broader term right whereas victim is a much more specific term that says I'm going to take the place of a sacrificial offering for the sins of others so that they might get into the kingdom of God through the sacrifice I offered just like my Lord Jesus now as you were saying before so if someone let's say accept it or felt like they're being called to be a victim soul and they they offered that up would that preclude them from still continuing to ask to be healed no I mean I would say that you know I mean you're a victim soul so long as you you choose to do it but you can of course continue like right now I'm trying to offer up you know the craziness of my blindness you know I'm trying to offer that up to the Lord but at the same time on December 11th I've got that real prospect of being qualified for a stem-cell treatment you know from my own stem cells and you know and so I you know I'm praying for that I you know and I know a lot of people on the show are praying for me as well exactly so I am really thankful for that and please continue to do so but you know if it's the Lord's will right as it was for Saint Paul that this continue then I want it to continue because frankly I don't want to get a cure that would ever as it were stand in the way of all the graces that God can bring through this suffering for me and others particularly toward my salvation so I'll take as they say I'll take the hit for the benefits in in spiritual terms okay very good just a few minutes before we go to our break last question email how can one feel they are supporting the church when many appeared not to be unified a little different tact if my beliefs are Catholic and traditional how can I make sure that I'm following the right path when so many quote-unquote clergy bishops Cardinals etc are so different how can i distinguish if the Holy Spirit is speaking to me and this is from Sam so if you can therefore Sam right Sam you know first of all you want to follow you know your conscience if we're dealing with things that are not matters of sin so for you well that you want to follow your conscience in that too but you also want to follow the teaching of the church and the teaching of Jesus Christ so if you're saying that some people are disagreeing with you about matters of sin or matters of doctrine then you know you just have to say well God spoke through Jesus Jesus of course spoke to the Apostles the Apostles wrote the scriptures the official interpreters of the church by the guidance inspiration of the Holy Spirit are the the Pope and and the ecumenical council of Bishops what's called the Magisterial authority of the church and I'm gonna follow the Magisterial authority of the church if other people say well I think I've got the truth and it doesn't correspond to the Magisterial authority of the church then it's not going to correspond to the will to the teaching the process it doesn't correspond to the teaching applause is not going to correspond to the teaching of Jesus it was that corresponding of the teaching of Jesus I don't think they've got the truth and you should just say well you know I don't think you have the truth I don't think you're you're kind of here in the in the line with Jesus now if you're talking about something other than Magisterial teaching about what's called truth and morals or doctrine and morals okay you know that's a whole other thing so you might say well I prefer a very traditional mass that's very reverential and I think that's the truth I don't like guitars or I don't like you know other kinds of you know sort of seeming liberties or something with the mass now you know of course you could say you know I really think that this is the truth I think this is the way I think that the greater the reverence the better and and you would I you and I would agree on this now of course and in the same moment you know you can't call that pair say the truth according to the Magisterial authority of the church so you don't want to be claiming that you yourself in your personal preference preference and your piety right which is the same as my own right you don't want to say you know well wait a minute this is the truth I'm a magisterial authority unto myself so you do have to allow for some degrees of latitude for other people and and the precedent for allowing that latitude it comes from st. Paul and st. Paul it says look you know I you know as far as eating meat sacrificed to idols and some of these you know I don't don't mean anything to me I could care less I take meat sacrifice to the idols right now and eat it because it means nothing because idols have no power I could care less and Christ isn't gonna judge me wrong for not putting any credence in the power of idols however he says if I find that eating meat sacrificed to idols would disco fie someone who does not have my perspective on faith God doesn't have my perspective on you know um you know or trust in the Lord quite yet who still is is very you know enmeshed in Judea Zin in the ritual of Judaism I don't eat meat in front of them sacrifice I was because that would dissatisfied their faith and undermine it so he does say you know you can have a latitude and and of course again you know with the meat sacrificed to idols as he says I don't care you know but I just I just refrained from doing it if I'm gonna dissatisfy somebody but he does allow for a great deal of latitude you know in matters that are not Magisterial that is to say matters of Magisterial teaching on doctrine and morals very good we shall take a break on that note we're here with father Spitzer a much more ahead here on his program in the midst of the universe where many questions still exist about suffering and we'll talk about his book when we get back stay with us right here in the heart of father Spitzer's universe [Music] have you found us once again at the intersection of faith and reason talking about why the all loving God allows suffering from chapter 10 of father Spitzer's book that we've been going through as you can see on the screen the light shines on in the darkness and let's turn right now to the west coast again and rejoin father Spitzer so we can get into some discussion of this particular chapter there he is so father as we were starting last week going into chapter 10 one of the things that struck me you talked about the idea of suffering and tragedy and you say here something that I would think people might in reading the book I was taking a little bit of back I'll say it said even incredible tragedies like the death of a child are not ultimately and completely tragic they are only partially in temporarily so because of the temporary loss in grief that parents feel in such circumstances you say is already compensated in the life of the child by God bestowing unconditional love upon him in his heavenly kingdom I understand some reason it's kind of like what you say later in the book I'm concerned that the reader might find that the forthcoming presentation about why God allows suffering is a bit too philosophical too cold and too detached from real emotion sadness and suffering you kind of related that to me how do you react to them yeah yeah well you know of course we all have sympathy for a person who loses a child because the pain is so great and God you know if we have sympathy if we are our hearts are poured out to somebody who's lost a child you can only imagine how God's heart is poured out to that same person so that the point I was trying to make is that once that child is lost right God automatically takes that child to himself and has already got him into the Kingdom of Heaven I mean you know some of these you know near-death experiences of children that are related in a variety of different case studies you know are amazing you know how the the child is already kind of in a state where he's completely immersed in Jesus or immersed in the relatives that he meets in heaven immersed in in God and and so that the child in a sense is is already in an eternally loving and joyful context however of course that the parents are the ones who are just terribly grieved and and what I wanted to say is you know even though that grief is so severe you know as Christians it's really incumbent upon us at that moment to pray for our child and not to resent God right for taking that child or allowing I didn't take him for allowing the child to be taken early an automobile accident or you know is something that a medical that might have happened to the child but whatever the case is if we begin that resentment process and we begin to think you know my child is never going to experience this or that or this or that it's okay that your child didn't experience that on earth because to be honest with you they are experiencing things a billion times told lovelier in heaven right now so you don't want to resent God for introducing something into the life of your child and it's a severe deprivation right that that God didn't introduce God's already given him a life or her a life a billion times told lovelier so that that is the first thing we don't want to do is start introducing you know that kind of bitterness and resentment toward God the other thing we don't want to do is what I call the old get rid of the peace of the moment scheme have you ever noticed sometimes when you're just in the the locks of real suffering or pain or grief or loss and you know all of a sudden you feel piece that comes it's completely what Saint Paul calls the peace beyond all understanding right the the peace beyond all understand and it just comes to you almost from outside of yourself through your faith and of course you're feeling this peace and then you guilt yourself out of it right you go wait a minute wait a minute my child has just died there's I can't possibly be feeling peace I can't be possibly be feeling consolation in the midst of the worst of all possible tragedies and then you go get rid of that I better move back into my despair mode and of course the minute we do that we literally take a Grace and chuck it down the drain because we think we have to be more despairing about what appears to be a tragedy but in the point I'm trying to make but in reality is only a partial and temporary tragedy and of course when our feelings and our loss begins to be remedied of course the tragedy begins to subside but for the child the child is in no way deprived losing those years of life they lose them with us were deprived I was gonna say in some ways we're the ones dealing with the tragedy and the try absolutely child right okay that's right the child and the energy you know you want to make that really clear you know and like I said and when the peace comes and so often for people of faith peace does come on it's even that kind of the most horrible tragedy there is a peace in giving it all to God and is the eternal cell Vivek will and of course when the peace comes it's beyond our understanding but the last thing we want to do is go I should be feeling a much more despair here and so I guilt myself out of peace choose despair so I can quote unquote feel better about it but it is that it is that also why in the world we live in today where there's that much more a lack of faith when tragedies like this occur the people who are left have nothing to hold on to yeah I mean that part you know especially if it's an only child that part just requires the good consolation of the Christian not just the Christian community the good consolation of good people and especially Christians to respond with consolation and with prayers sometimes just trying to tell people who've lost a child you know put it in the hands of God that advice you know sometimes is you know they can't handle it right now so don't try to give advice just say hey can we say a decade of the Rosary together you know or let me just be with you right now and let's just pray a couple of prayers until the Lord that's going to do much more good than any kind of advice you can give them and and at the same time you know when you're with them being with them and praying with them don't worry you are really doing a tremendous thing for those people in terms of of helping them to embrace the consolation of God and if they say you know I think I'm feeling peace the one thing I tell them is don't don't reject that peace because of course it's God's grace it's the only advice I will normally give other than that the rosary is such a great prayer sometimes if people are not habituated to the rosary I will do you know just an our Father and then do some scriptural readings maybe from the first letter Paul to the Corinthians or to do some of my favorite sayings of Jesus so those would be things sometimes the Psalms are also very very good as well you know in just helping at that moment right okay very good moving ahead to your book you say when God decided to create restricted yet transit gentle human beings distinct from him yet he made in his own image he took a risk how does an all-knowing God take a risk okay and here's here's the the basic thing this is the problem of human freedom right so in other words that the question that contextualizes that statement is why would an all-loving God allow human beings to cause suffering to other human beings why didn't he just create us so that of course we would do loving behaviors and never hurt one another and the answer as I think and many people can already into it is if God doesn't give you a choice to do unloving things then you really don't have the choice to do loving things right it's programmed into you and if the program is there only to do loving behaviors you can't do anything else that's a program that's not your choice so when it's when you choose love you're doing it out of a program your love is not your own your love is not self-initiated your love is programmed by God that wasn't good enough for God God wanted to make us in his own image and likeness which means he has to give us a choice to do loving things or unloving things which means he has to give us that freedom to choose unloved meaning he gives us the not the actuality but the possibility of causing suffering to other people now let's get that does God take a risk in doing this of course God takes a risk he thinks to himself in order to make human beings in my image and like this I got to give them freedom if I give them freedom I got to give them the choice the possibility to do things that are unloving and hurtful now I'm gonna take that risk I'm gonna take that chance that the vast majority of them with my Redemption with my mercy and forgiveness given through my son I'm gonna take the chance that most people are gonna benefit from this most people are going to take that love and they I don't want to create a robot I want to create a human being with that choice and they're gonna be with me in the kingdom of God even with all that suffering in the world I'm gonna make that suffering through my grace redemptive beyond belief I'm gonna actually use it for the sake of my salvation I'm gonna use it to bring them to salvation help them to bring others to salvation to purify their love in this world to purify their faith in this world and even to offer it up an imitation of my son I'm gonna do with this because I know that the vast majority of people will by levering that suffering ultimately be brought with their own self-initiated love and the joy that comes from it and the pre appreciation of everybody else's self initiated love and the joy that comes from that they're gonna be in the kingdom of heaven as real free human beings in emmitt in my own image and likeness I'm not going to create a robot so he takes the risk he does it and of course now it is up to us to utilize that freedom to and to make that suffering as it were that comes out of human freedom to turn that as best we can into salvation and love okay and that leads us into a second section here right after it says it is somewhat easier to understand why God would allow suffering to a car through human agents than through nature after all it would seem that if God creates the natural order he could have created it perfectly I mean you explain why people need choices but why does nature need to not be perfect you know so in other words this is the the opposite side of the coin so why then you know does okay okay just say human beings have to be able to cause suffering to other human beings in order for them to be free their love can be their own and the salvation can be enjoyed of their true love okay that's fine but what about nature I mean why in the world when God allow nature to produce you know the imperfections of nature to produce suffering like earthquakes you know diseases famines genetic defects all these things that come from the blind forces of nature why would God allow nature to do that why didn't he just make nature perfectly perfect so that you know we wouldn't have to suffer and and of course everybody can probably see right away what the missing point is challenges are not necessarily something bad for us mm-hmm suffering is not necessarily bad for us and as we've talked about as we've moved through this book right there are so many dimensions of suffering so many that can actually make those challenges make that pain it turn it into courage turn it into the most noble self-sacrificial dimensions of our lives where we can actually you know endure suffering for the sake of some noble cause beyond ourselves even give our lives in a war or you know suffer embarrassment for the sake of the truth or suffer even the loss of our lives and martyrdom for the sake of the faith right all these kinds of things but more than that there's so many other things where we can benefit from challenges that we've talked about and certainly one of those is the purification of our love that we've talked about time and time again and those challenges that can bring us to the point where we gotta get out of superficiality I mean I only speak for myself here but if God just left me without any suffering in a nice little pleasure bubble I can tell you right now that I would just never disturb the pleasure bubble I'm a nurse guy and I would just say things are going great you know let's not rock the boat here let me just keep being a superficial idiot that never contends with any challenges never has to grow in love never has to grow in humility never has to grow in faith let me be a perpetual child for the rest of my life and just get the nice protected pleasures of God in my little bubble I would have chosen the inertia you know and just say hey I got eternity I can wait you know but of course God says no well it's not good enough I don't want you to be a perpetual child I do want you to grow in love I do want you to grow in self-sacrifice I do want you to grow in faith I do want you to show noble you know and and face you know suffering and challenge nobly for the sake of something beyond yourself I do want you to serve other people who are in desperate need of you and I want to use every need and vulnerability in your life I want to use that as a lever to drive a Mack truck full of grace into your hearts because of course once God can do it you know and once we're vulnerable once we have need we you know we you know are immediately asking the question what is the meaning of life you mean it's not just being absorbed in the pleasure bubble it's not just about level one you mean there's something more than I'm being called to and you wouldn't even get to level two if there weren't suffering and challenge right you know how you gonna get to an ego comparative stance if everybody is equally you know just sort of absorbed in the pleasure bubble you know I mean huh you're never going to get to level three you know you're not going to get to the contributive level you're where you discover love where you discover that the real meaning of life is trying to make an optimal positive difference to your family to your friends to your church to the kingdom of God that to the community to the your organization to the culture to the society if you're so lucky or you're trying to do everything you can to do as much as you can to make you know you know humanity and in the world a better place before you die and your only not going to get to the deepest levels of faith and what we call love for right the fourth level of love you're not going to get there unless you you know basically you're being called to it through those extrinsic sufferings behind yourself so the one thing we got to remember is God creates us in an imperfect world for one very very important reason and that is that we have to move you know through our own self initiation through our own freedom we have to move out of inertia and we have to move to the most deepest levels of meaning and love and purpose and faith and transcendence compassion and humility we're going to have to move out of that inertia toward that for the sake of something positive beyond ourselves indeed eternally transcendent and that imperfect world it helps us to do that and moreover it calls humanity to come together as groups in an interdependent group so for common cause toward a common good and that's what's initiated great scientific discoveries and great medical discoveries and great progress in justice and law in the courts the international community you look at the devastation of warnings at what possible good and look at what humanity has done not just the individual and collective self sacrificial actually noble not just the greatest generation that Tom Brokaw talks about right but look at what it did to bring about economic rights and socio-political rights and all of the other things that just moved the collective human community out of its inertia and so of course you look at warning though it can anything good come from well of course I don't recommend war of course and of course that's done by human freedom anyway but look at what earthquakes have done and how that has you know and look at what famine has done and what we have I mean soon we will have you know great discovery a human creativity you know organized around great collective efforts toward the common good and real not just individual contributed fashion but in society societal and collective contributed fashion look at what suffering has motivated us to do and ultimately look at what suffering has motivated us to do collectively toward the kingdom of God in the perpetuation of the church and especially in the example and lives of the saints individually and collectively I mean huh God thank God we were born into an imperfect world my father would have said because if we weren't we would just be little teeny images of ourselves allowed to perpetuate in a childlike form in a pleasure bubble which wouldn't have done any of us any good indeed we would have never discovered our own mettle let alone discovered the contributions we have to make individually and collectively toward the common good and the kingdom of God so is that pleasure bubble was that in Hawaii someplace oh yeah they grew up in an idyllic family these opportunities for pleasure bubble luckily I had to go to school or some you know tiny bubbles right tiny bubbles and Don Ho okay who are those old enough to remember so let's finish one who one comment on that you say in the Christian view there's an additional purpose for the imperfect world particularly the inequities of imperfections within it namely the call to loving service yeah that's right and of course you know this is what I was just intimating at the very last part you know when when when you know people are suffering around us that's our call to respond to that suffering and the minute we respond to that call notice that this is a life transforming experience some of those quotes from Victor Frankel's man's search for meaning his experience in the concentration camp that I give in that last chapter there some of those quotes are right on for this this purpose answering this question the what Viktor Frankl is saying here visa vie you know love I discovered in the darkness the emptiness and the horribleness of these death camps I discovered there that love was the purpose of life and that the ultimate meaning of life which I take to mean eternal and ultimate meaning of life resides in that love that's what he discovered because what he discovered from within himself was of course his response to the other prisoners the way he tried to sir right there suffering all around him in this country she came and of course what he discovers is I got to do something now some people they they didn't have that reaction right they didn't discover love they they basically said oh if the Allies don't liberate us by Christmas you know I'll just die and they did die I mean some of them absolutely did die but a lot of them said no wait a minute I mean this I'm called to serve I'm gonna do what I can bless you know st. Maximilian Kolbe right I'll give them some of my food I'll sacrifice myself in the place of that other person who has the family and so many I mean the great heroic acts of love where people actually found themselves not just discovered their own mental and courage but literally found that whole of christ-like compassion in a single moment of self-sacrifice in those camps there was hundreds no thousands of these people and so of course when you really look at it yeah even in the midst of of misery well even in them and in the imperfect world we live in we have run out of time father so we will have to continue next time as we finish up the chapter quickly if you'd like to offer some blessing on the way out I would very much like to do it please bow your heads and pray for God's blessing and may God our Lord through His Holy Spirit grant you the gift of wisdom inspire you to the depths of what you can and cannot understand inspire you to the depths of where you can be in two cents the plan the conspiracy of his Providence within the world and within yourself the sense you're called to sainthood through all of the various sufferings and and moments of compassion to which we are called may Almighty God bless you in that wisdom and love in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit amen amen and thank you so much Father we shall see you next week stay well till then and don't forget father Spitzer's teachings and DVD sets are available through the EWTN religious catalogue this one will pointing out this week in defense of God's like this father did many series over the years we also have a wonderful book the contemporary rosary it's Catholic bestseller by our good friend Dan Burke and that's available through our catalog and from EWTN publishing and don't forget the beatification of father Solanas Casey November 18th 4:00 p.m. that should be Eastern Time Ford Field in Detroit don't miss that he's certainly a future Saint next time up part 3 chapter 10 why the all loving God allows suffering much to think about and the place to think about it is at the heart of father Spitzer's universe the intersection of faith and reason we shall see you next time thanks [Music] [Applause] you

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Length: 56min 53sec (3413 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 22 2017