The mystery of suffering

Saturday,
October 26, 2019
29th Week in Ordinary Time
First Reading:
Rom 8: 1-11
Gospel Reading: Lk 13:1-9
One day 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 those eighteen persons in Siloah who were crushed when the tower fell, do you think they were more guilty than all the others in Jerusalem? 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)
Is suffering an indictment for past sins? In the two examples cited in today’s Gospel reading Jesus answered this question in the negative. The Galileans who suffered in the hands of Pilate, and the 18 persons in Siloah who were crushed by a tower that fell were not punished for past sins. The Galileans died because of Pilate’s criminal design, while those 18 persons died because of the culpable negligence of the builder of the tower. As a general rule suffering is not the wage of sin.
This general rule admits certain exceptions. Comeuppance is one. Comeuppance operates on the boomerang principle that what comes around, comes around. Thus a person suffering venereal disease because of promiscuity suffers the consequences of his past sins. He cannot even expect any merit from what he suffers. He cannot have his cake and eat it too. If he continues the promiscuity he must be ready to suffer the consequences.
While sufferings are not generally the wages of sin and cannot be taken against the person who suffers, sufferings resulting from comeuppance are. Sufferings like these are inherently useless to one’s salvation because they are toxic fruits of a poisonous tree.
The Christian solution to sufferings resulting from comeuppance is to stop the vices that generate them. This is what Jesus meant when he said: “But unless you change your ways, you will all perish as they did”. –(Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., J.D., D.M.