Hi, WDC —

A man named Les Murray wrote a poem this year addressing the question:

• Why does God not spare the innocent?

I found it quoted in Crisis magazine:

"The answer to that is not in the same world as the question, so you would shrink from me in terror if I could answer it."

Actually, what he says is true of the full answer, which is in God, but a partial human experience of the answer can be found.

All Christians believe that Christ is the answer to suffering. In suffering, in the bearing of evil, in death, we encounter Christ, who has entered and bears it all, and who accompanies all those who suffer.

The specifically Catholic difference in understanding suffering is that we believe Christ unites our suffering to His and makes it redemptive. Moreover, we are offered the opportunity daily to participate in union with Christ's sacrifice and triumph, by participating in the Eucharist.

Beyond the presence of Christ in it, and the meaning He gives suffering, in that He takes it up and bears it with us and makes it open to life; beyond that, and even in that — there really are no words.

• Judaism affirms God's partisanship to the cause of the suffering.
• All Christianity affirms the triumph of the Resurrection.
• Catholicism inserts us into both, His suffering and Resurrection, and offers an explanation that is more of a relationship, than a discussion.

God be with you and with all who suffer bearing the sufferings of others.

Mary Ann