In the midst of this Corona Virus shut down, our lives have been turned upside down. Nothing is what we expected it to be and our world has come to a stop. We are in a way lost in a bit of confusion.
Some people are asking the question where is God in all this?
This brings us to the famous question that those who do not believe may ask when things go wrong. If God exists things like this would not happen?
It is an important thing to consider at this time. Let us continue: Does God exist, is he real?
When people bring up that argument the immediate response we can understand is that in fact God exists, but what does not exist is a false concept of God.
If God does not meet our expectations that does not mean he does not exist, it means that our concept of God needs to change. That is what St. Thomas discovered.
Since I was ordained over twenty-six years ago, I always argued against calling St. Thomas doubting Thomas. He did not doubt. He refused to believe. Doubt is if God exists how can the corona virus issue happen? St. Thomas says: I refuse to believe until I put my fingers in his hands and my hands in his sides. That is not doubt, it is anger, frustration, disappointment, despair, but not doubt.
His concept of Jesus was that he would free Judah from Roman occupation and restore the sovereign nation of Israel to the Earth, then it could be assumed that he would die and return to the Father.
So when Jesus died in what St. Thomas saw as a total failure, he grew angry. Jesus did not meet his expectations.
But lets look for a second at what would have happened if Jesus did what Thomas expected. He would have been known today as a great military leader. People would talk about his military accomplishments in war colleges along with the tactics of Hannibal, Ghengis Khan, Alexander the Great and Julius Ceaser. They would then quote his philosophy like they quote Albert Einstein. However, no one would be talking about eternal life, no one would be talking about a whole new understanding of what it means to be human and no one would be talking about a new anthropology. They would be talking about Jesus in limited circles.
Jesus died as what appeared to be a failure, but then by rising from the dead, he literally changed our whole understanding of what it means to be a human being.
When St. Thomas says, “My Lord and My God” he begins not only to believe in the resurrection, but that life is changed drastically. Nothing is the same once we believe in eternal life. Nothing.
Jesus in obedience to the Father through the Holy Spirit did something that was beyond the expectations of St. Thomas and the Apostles.
The fact is that what Thomas learned to doubt in was his concept of God.
Now let us go back to the question: If God exists why are we suffering from the Corona Virus?
That concept of God, that he protects us from all difficulty is what does not exist. God leads us through difficulty to where he is calling us to Heaven. He leads his disciples through their difficulties to a whole new form of understanding and a whole new way of being.
Therefore, as St. Thomas understood, the question is not about whether or not God exists, whether Jesus resurrected from the dead. It is instead what is God doing now that we do not see?
What is God doing in your life right now? If you remain faithful to Him, he will not only lead you to eternal life, he will work through you right now. What is he doing in your life right now, through your difficulties? Will you let him use this crisis to change you?
One of the ancient principles in the Bible is that our difficulties change us and make us like purified gold.
What is He actually doing right now in your life? You might not see anything, you might not understand anything, but I assure you that it is happening.
The more you stay faithful, the more you are being transformed.
One of the questions that has come up during this time is: Is God punishing us? God does not punish but he does discipline. Punishment is a tool of justice, discipline is a tool of teaching.
The Bible says that we must not disdain any discipline because that is a tool of correction in love.
Is it possible that God is disciplining us and if so, it is so that we may be more transformed to be more like him.
This is the perfect time to ask the Lord to help us understand what he is doing in our lives individually, as a parish and as a nation right now. How is he changing us right now and ask the Lord to lead us to be docile to that change so that we may be stronger and more powerful as Christians.
As I said many times over the past eighteen years, we as the Catholic Church have been through a horrible time, but God was strengthening his Church because difficult times were coming. Those difficult times are here and the people need to know that God is stronger than their concept of him.
God’s greatest desire is the salvation of all and he is using us right now at this time as his instruments of that salvation. However, he is further forming us, purifying us and leading us to be source of his strength for others at this time.
If God has disappointed you at this time, then understand it was not God, it was your concept of God which failed. That is a good thing, because he is calling us to see him more clearly, to be transformed by him everyday so that we may further His work which is the salvation of all souls.
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