Lessons from Lent and Haiti

BY BISHOP HOWARD J. HUBBARD

Last month, people throughout the world over were confronted with the shock of the earthquake which rocked Haiti and, in a flash, resulted in more than 200,000 dead.

Millions of men, women and children were rendered homeless and destitute, having to mourn their deceased family members and to face the daunting task of rebuilding their broken lives and communities.

In the aftermath of this cataclysmic disaster, both its victims and all those worldwide who viewed the pictures of the human and physical devastation it created were left to ponder the faith-shattering question: Where was God in all this? How could a good, compassionate and all-powerful God permit such evil and grief to fall upon so many thousands of innocent people?

Just as Jesus was tested during His 40 days in the desert, so also the Haitian earthquake tests our faith and causes us to ask ultimate questions: How can one believe in a God who snuffs out thousands of lives in a few terrible seconds, a God who seems to be quixotic in the choices of who lives and dies? Indeed, why does God tolerate death? What lies beyond death or, for that matter, why is there anything at all?

These are the questions that have haunted people throughout the history of humanity. Quite frankly, no one has the full answers to these questions, because God’s ways are not our ways and God’s plans are inscrutable, always somewhat shrouded in mystery.

That is why faith always involves a leap into the un-known, and trust in a God who writes our history with crooked lines.

But while God is not fully knowable, God has chosen to reveal something of the divine to us through the Scriptures. From the very beginning of salvation history, it was the Word of God that brought the Lord’s covenant community into being and nourished its existence.

The creation of Israel, from a mere multitude into a people, came about through the proclamation of God’s Word. Down through the centuries, that word — received and recorded by the patriarchs, kings, prophets and psalmists — molded, formed and shaped the Israelites and sustained them throughout their turbulent history as a nomadic people subject to the slings and arrows of their enemies.

Finally, after the Egyptian exile and wandering through the desert, God’s Word led them to the Promised Land.

However, it was the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, who made known to us the fullness of God’s revelation and established that new and eternal covenant which to this day enlightens us and guides our destiny as a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a people the Lord God has made His own.

The mystery of God’s Word is that it is a living word that does more than recall historical events of the past. The aim of listening to God’s Word, reflecting upon it and discussing it within faith community, is not to force an ancient story on a modern community, a sterile document taken from the stale archives of history.

Rather, it is to make the Word of God actual and present to its hearers, as leaven within the community. God’s Word is a living word that does what it says and that has the power to bring about what it proclaims.

40 days
So, for example, during the Sundays of Lent we are called to be attentive to the powerful images which the Gospels present: Jesus driven into the desert by the Spirit...transfigured before His disciples on the mountaintop...telling the parables of the fig tree and the prodigal son...forgiving the woman caught in the act of adultery...and mounting a colt for the final trip up to Jerusalem, where His journey among us culminates with His passion, death and resurrection.

These Gospel stories are meant to speak to us here and now. They are meant to be encounters with Jesus which can touch us deeply and become part of the fabric of our lives.

How are we tempted today? Does the lure of power, money and control continue to challenge us personally or as a nation? What in our lives needs to be transfigured: a relationship which is unhealthy; a habit which needs to be broken; an attitude which needs to be changed? Like the fig tree, are we being asked to bear more fruit in our lives?

Are we more like the younger brother, the so-called “prodigal son,” who repents and throws himself at the Father’s mercy — or more like his older brother, whose attitude of servile obedience to his father bred anger, envy and resentment? Are we like the Pharisees, who self-righteously sought to condemn the adulteress until Jesus exposed their own hypocrisy?

There are so many ways to hide from ourselves, to run away from our pain, to avoid our anxieties, to put up a good front, to deny our anger, to dampen our joys, to belittle our talent — and, thus, we become distorted caricatures of what we think we ought to be, rather than the persons God has created us to be and whom God loves unconditionally.

Soul cleaning
That is why we need this season of Lent to clear our minds and hearts of useless preoccupations. We now have before us the image of Jesus, in whom we can see the reflection of our real selves and come to know who we truly are.

That is why we need to be reminded that Jesus is “God with us,” who endured great grief and pain, who was betrayed by one of His own disciples and who felt abandoned by God as He hung on Calvary’s cross, ridiculed, scorned and rejected.

These and other Gospel stories and scriptural lessons, coupled with the teaching and tradition of the Church, the witness of its members and its sacramental and liturgical rituals, especially the Eucharist, provide the framework for our life’s journey. These enable us to put the Haitian earthquake and all of life’s realities — good and bad, happy and sad — into perspective.

Christ’s life, in other words, enables us to understand that what life is about has to do with saving and being saved; freeing and being freed; loving and being loved — and that all this counts for something. And the story of Jesus, when it becomes our own story, provides such meaning.

This Lent, then, all of us must seek to listen more intently to the story of Jesus and to probe its meaning for our life more deeply, so that we can come to the Easter feast renewed, refreshed and more energized to encounter life and its challenges with the vision, wisdom and spirit of our brother, friend and savior, Jesus Christ.

P.S. Thank you for the donations of the more than $700,000 you have made so far through your parish or Catholic Char-ities to the recovery efforts of Catholic Relief Services in Haiti. The Haitian people still need our help. We can make them the beneficiaries of our Lenten journey to Easter by donating to Catholic Charities, (memo: Haitian Relief) 40 N. Main Ave., Albany, NY 12203. One hundred percent of these donations will go to Catholic Relief Services.

(02/25/10)