Sunday, July 20, 2008 Lagura: The good, the bad and the patient God By Fr. Flor Lagura, SVD in the service of the word
ABOARD a train from Georgia to Moscow an elderly woman with a distinctly peasant’s face sat in her compartment with a large bag on her lap. Asked by a fellow passenger what she had inside the bag, she gladly answered: “These are loaves of bread I had baked and which I am taking to my son. He used to be seminarian. He is now an important man in Moscow. He is Josef Stalin.”
Many hated Russia’s former dictator, many more feared him, but his mother saw in him the son whom she brought into this world; for her, he was the good son she loved.
Quite often people ask, why is there evil in the world? And, why does the infinitely good God not remove the abomination?
As regards the first question Genesis 3 gives us an answer. In the beginning God created a world where everything was in order, everything was good. More importantly man enjoyed God’s friendship; hence was happy. Unfortunately, man disobeyed God, lost His friendship, and with it the happiness Adam and Eve should have enjoyed and could have given to posterity.
Our Lord gives a further explanation as to the sad state of affairs we all are in with the story or parable of the weeds among the wheat (Mt 12: 24 -30). Furthermore, with this parable he gives an answer to the second question as to why God tolerates evil among the good.
Even in the best of societies or communities there is evil. The scandals that have rocked the Church and the States attest to this.
And even in the worst of peoples there is some good. Although many in Russia dreaded Stalin’s power to torture or even kill, his mother saw in him the good son who once dreamed of becoming a priest. We cannot and must not focus our attention on the vices or crimes of others thereby becoming blind to their good sides.
Moreover, to our surprise there is also the dark side in each one of us, for as St. Paul says, “For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want….Miserable one that I am!”(Rom. 7:19, 14).
Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his Gulag Archipelago further observes: “Gradually I came to realize that the line which separates good from evil…passes right through every human heart. Even in the hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good remains. And in the best of all hearts, there remains an unuprooted small corner of evil.”
With infinite patience God waits till the end. There and then we shall all be judged, not by one single act or one single period in our lives, but by our lives in their entirety. Happily, while you and I can make mistakes, with infinite patience and mercy God gives us the grace to redeem ourselves.
From the field of good mixed with evil, with souls desiring good but wrestling with the evil within, God can make saints.
