why do bad things happen to good people?

Homily

4th Sunday of Lent - Laetare Sunday BI

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

14 March 2021

AMDG +mj

Why do bad things happen to good people?

I confess.  This is not my favorite pivotal question.  Others write these questions for me, so that I'm answering what others want to know.  For me though, this question is tired.  It's overused for those who want to complain about life or doubt God.  The problem of evil is not new, and it's not going away.  For me, the mystery of suffering is more a question to be embraced than a problem to be solved.

Ultimately, we're asking whether life is fair.  It's not.  We all know this.  Good things happen to bad people, and vice versa.  We all have different gifts and crosses.  The sooner we face this, the better, for facing the unfairness of life gets us into life as it really is, not as we would pretend it to be.  For me, the better question is whether life is worth living.  I say a resounding YES!

Still, I'm avoid the question that still needs to be faced.  Why do bad things happen to good people?

The short answer is this.  Evil is permitted so that good people can conquer it with love.  Suffering is redemptive and salvific.  What do we mean by this?  We mean that bad things open up a new path to the fullness of life and salvation.  In short, God permits bad things so that you might have a path for becoming a saint.

You don't have to like this answer, but I'm sticking with it.  Look at human tragedy, especially the most senseless, and I dare say you will also find new heroes being born.  Saints are forged in the worst circumstances.  Especially when life is unfair, when the response is not to complain or avoid, but to embrace and transform evil with love, a new a different way of life emerges.

That's why the cross must be lifted up.  So that we might always be looking at the worst thing happening to the best guy.  That's why we reserve the most passionate liturgical kiss for the cruelest form of torture suffered willingly by the most innocent.  For its precisely when I embrace my own cross and follow Him, that I lay hold of a new and vertical way of living that the Gospel calls eternal life.

Bad things happen to good people so that good people can become better people, and defeat evil at its very core.  The ultimate question is not whether life is fair.  It's whether I am going to do something about it.