The Real Answer to Why God Allows Suffering

hi my name is father mike schmitz and this is ascension presents this is a heavy topic i've touched on it before but i want to touch on it again it's the it's the the question of looking around this world there's so much suffering there's so much evil in the world there's there's physical evil you know people getting sick and dying there's moral evil people doing evil things if god was good why wouldn't he take it away why wouldn't god do something and and make it so that bad things don't happen i want to look at it through this particular lens i've talked about this before there will be a link to another video about this but looking at it from a different lens or this particular lens the lens of comic books you might be familiar with the injustice series in dc comics so enjoy the injustice series in dc comics is also made into a video game i played my first xbox two weeks ago my nephew had his confirmation and his little brother said hey uncle mike want to play injustice with me i'm like because he's a comic book fan and i'm finally related to a comic book fan it's so good i was the one the the uncle was like okay one more game okay one more game one more game because it was so much fun i don't play video games ever ever ever that was my first xbox experience at 45 years old anyways what is injustice injustice is like an alternative universe kind of storyline in which in that universe what happens is i'm gonna totally be nerding out i apologize the joker uses the scarecrow's fear toxin on superman again please forgive me if you're like who what um joker uses uh uh scarce fear toxin on superman so superman thinks he's fighting doomsday but he's actually fighting his wife lois lane who is currently pregnant with their unborn child um superman inadvertently kills lois lane because she's not doomsday and therefore inadvertently kills their unborn son as well superman is like what have i done with her talks and where it wears off he's like this was the joker batman you should have done something about this you know why do we keep these people alive and so he punches through a joker's chest um when joker dies it sets off this nuclear bomb in metropolis that kills like millions and millions of people and so superman says okay that's it like that's done that's the that's the premise right for superman saying you know what i'm powerful enough to to eliminate evil i'm powerful enough to eliminate all these people who are doing um these bad things like i'm fast enough powerful enough strong enough all these kind of things i'm just gonna do it i'm just gonna eliminate crime and so he does that and he becomes a totalitarian dictator the whole concept is here's good superman right good superman who's super powerful who says i'm going to use it i'm going to use my almost unlimited power to stop bad things happening and in the process ends up ceasing to be good because he takes away everyone's freedom which is so the concept of injustice is here's superman and all people on his side and here's batman who says no that's totalitarianism and it's evil but i'm eliminating all crime yes but you're eliminating all freedom as well because if we're going to have the freedom to be uh to be good we also have to have the freedom to be evil without the freedom to choose evil we actually don't have the freedom we don't freedom at all we don't have the ability to be great and god has made us to be great and that's that's the thing so so say someone says how can god be good and still allow these evil things to happen well look at the dc comics series of injustice if god were to be like superman in this case and say you know that's it no more evil no more suffering no more death i'm taking it all away he would also have to take away our freedom he said well yeah but what if he just fixes it what couldn't he just fix it one more time like bring us back to the guard and say okay okay no more evil again here are fixed well if you're a parent you if you're a parent you know how that goes right why in your house are there a bunch of things that are not yet fixed because the kids are still here we know if we fix them they're just going to break again and that's one of the reasons why the lord is allowing this world to be broken he created this world good and then we broke it and he allows it to be broken so that we can be free so that we can be like him now that doesn't mean that god doesn't care doesn't mean that god is is distant in fact it's the exact opposite what is the whole story of christianity the whole the entire story of christianity catechism says this is every part of the story of christ is at least partly an answer to the question why is there evil because what does god do it doesn't keep his distance he gets close he doesn't not care he allows what over overwhelms you and what overwhelms me he allows that to overwhelm him so much so much so the point where he experiences incredible betrayal he experiences incredible suffering he experiences incredible isolation and loneliness he experiences what it is to have everything stripped from him as he's naked on a cross to the point where all he can give is all he can give is his spirit all he can give is forgiveness he descends to the realm of the dead and rises and rises in the resurrection he'll cheers god he's not impassive in our in the face of our pain he's not distant from it he experiences the passion and he gets close he doesn't take away our pain he doesn't take away our suffering he enters into it transforms it and redeems it this is so important jesus doesn't take away our suffering he doesn't take our pain he enters into it he transforms it and redeems it so that now suffering has power now suffering has meaning behind it because we what we've been baptized in christ we live as members of the body of christ and one of the things saint paul had said is he says i rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and in my body i'm making up for what is lacking in the in the sufferings of christ for the sake of his body the church that saint paul is saying yes of course jesus did it all he he he paid the price but he gives us what pope john paul ii says a sliver of his cross so that in your suffering and my suffering because we're members of the body of christ right the body of christ still suffers the body of christ in heaven is glorified but on earth it's called the church militant or the body of christ that is that is active that's fighting that's suffering the body of christ continues to suffer and that suffering still does something your suffering still matters because jesus didn't take away our pain because he couldn't take away our freedom he's not willing to not willing to take away our freedom so how do you unite your sufferings to jesus i tell you it's super simple because you remember the body of christ what did jesus do and he said she says father into your hands i commend my spirit he just made the decision for you father he's made the decision you're a member of the body of christ you've been baptized and brought into the the church of the living god you have the holy spirit within you you're a temple of the holy spirit you remember the body of christ as i said so all you have to do in the midst of any kind of suffering physical suffering emotional suffering mental suffering moral any kind all you have to say lord use this that's it that's all i have to say is father use this and he does i mean honestly think of like a a hangnail think of a sliver think of the worst thing you can think and think of like a heartbreak that's real death loss and in the midst of that to say okay father i don't want this to happen but use it i don't want to have to go through this but but but use it and that's how you and i unite our sufferings to the sufferings of christ for the sake of his body the church because when nothing given to god has ever wasted so give it to god and don't waste it for all of us here at ascension presents my name is father mike god bless you

Channel: Ascension Presents

Views: 231,192

Keywords: suffering, Fr. Mike Schmitz, Injustice, Superman, xbox video games, injustice (video game), Batman vs. Superman, St. John Paul II, Ascension Press, Ascension Presents, Father Mike Schmitz, the real reason for suffering, Batman, Good God and Redemptive Suffering, redemptive suffering, DC comics, Injustice comic book series, why does god allow suffering, why does god allow evil, the problem of pain, why does god let bad things happen, fr. mike on suffering

Id: JJrn9rkOYH4

Length: 8min 29sec (509 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 09 2020