As I reflect on the words of Jeremiah which we prayed during the canticle this morning, the horrific scenes of death, pain, suffering and destruction of typhoon, earthquake and tsunami victims play in my mind. The newspapers, news and online websites carry hard to read or watch photos and articles on the suffering of thousands of victims in the Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan, Vietnam and Samoa.
Surely these victims would share the same sentiment as Jeremiah in lamenting their misfortune. Surely these victims would question God as they mourn their loss.
Seeing all these natural disasters, I also tend to ask God a lot of “Why” type of questions. And, most of the time, there are no answers for these questions.
Jeremiah also seemed to not find the root cause of the suffering, but he acknowledged that it was the wickedness of the people that caused suffering. In today’s context, I wonder if this wickedness could refer to our wanton destruction of mother earth, the gift of God to humanity.
But, as I continue to pray these words of Jeremiah, I can feel his full trust in God as he continues to storm heaven to remind God of their covenant.
In the same way, as I see people suffering great pain and being tortured by unanswered questions, I also see the beautiful side of people reaching out to them, trying to save their loved ones and belongings, foreign aid pouring in, people leaving their jobs and families to head for the disaster sites to volunteer their services.
Last weekend, the catechists of Our Lady of the Star of the Sea together with catechism students took the initiative to raise funds during weekends masses for these victims of natural disasters, I was touched by the efforts of these young boys and girls from the parish who were galvanized to help all these thousands of unknown, faceless victims.
They might not be there with the victims, they might not know their actual situations but they reached out to them in love and solidarity, I believe this is the most powerful lesson for their catechesis to exemplify the meaning of “love your neighbours”.
Thus, if you were to ask me what the positive element from all these disasters was, my answer would be: It reminds me to love more ... to love the people around me, to love those near or far from me, and to love the environment. And of course, the most important thing: To love God, the God who never forgets His covenant with us.”
“We know our offences, O Lord; we have sinned against you.” (Antiphon for the canticle)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stay tuned for the next post by Bro David Arulanatham on 11th Oct 2009.
I am truly touched the brothers want to share their reflections with us. Bro Aloy I share with your thoughts that we cannot really understand the root causes of suffering but to me it does not matter as long as we are wiiling to help in whatever way we can.
ReplyDelete