The cause of sufferings

SUNDAY, March 24, 2019 THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT 1st Reading: Exodus 3:1-8a.13-15 Second
Reading: 1 Cor. 10:1-6.10-12 Gospel: Luke 13:1-9
Some persons told Jesus what had occurred in the Temple: Pilate had Galileans killed and their blood mingled with the blood of their sacrifices. Jesus replied, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this? I tell you: no. But unless you change your ways, you will all perish as they did. (…)
And Jesus continued with this story, “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard and he came looking for fruit on it, but found none. Then he said to the gardener: ’Look here, for three years now I have been looking for figs on this tree and I have found none. Cut it down, why should it use up the ground?’ The gardener replied: ’Leave it one more year, so that I may dig around it and add some fertilizer; and perhaps it will bear fruit from now on. But if it doesn’t, you can cut it down.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the  Assimilated Life  Experience)
When told about the fate of some Galileans whose blood Pilate mixed with sacrifices offered to false gods, Jesus remarked that this was not a punishment from God for their sins. In so saying Jesus declared that misfortunes are not punishments from above. We love the slogan “God is good all the time…” It’s an admission that God cannot be the direct source of evil.
One reason for misfortunes is human error. The error can be personal or by agency. Our personal errors have consequences that can ricochet to our peril. The good thing with this kind of error is that we can avert further damage to ourselves by simply reforming our lives. The damage is also foreseeable. We see social ills coming, for instance, after executing wrong decisions at the polls. We can also expect economic woes from the family’s indulgence in expensive vices. We can rightly foresee bleak future in a child who barters his studies with wanton youthful experimentations.
Misfortunes can also come by agency. The errors of others affect us. The problem with this kind of error is that we do not have the power to convert the doer of the error. We cannot even petition God to strike the evil agent with lightning. Our only remedy is to ask for God’s grace to persevere in carrying our cross and derive merits therefrom. (Our courts can take care of earthly justice).
Although the victim in error by agency is at the mercy of the evil person committing the error, God steps in to the victim’s defense. Jesus warns: Unless you change your ways, you will also end like the Galileans whose blood Pilate mixed with sacrifices to false Gods. — (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M.

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