5th Sunday Ordinary – A few good men to whom bad things happened

In the readings today, we find three good men who became victims of unfortunate events. In the 1^st reading, Job, a good man, says: "My life is like the wind, I shall never see happiness again." This was because after so much honest and hard work, Job’s life becomes fruitful – children, wealth, flocks, servants… until misfortune befalls him, and takes everything away, except his nagging wife.   In the 2^nd reading we find Paul, a good man who only wanted to reach out to people and tell them of the good news. In the process he was flogged, imprisoned, shipwrecked and later killed. In the Gospel, there is Jesus Christ, a good man, who healed the sick, cast out demons,  and preached kindness. And he is maligned, persecuted, despised.  So, why do bad things happen to these good people?

Through the ages people have tried to give an answer to this question :

The Mathematician Augustus DeMorgan, 1866 came up with the Murphy’s Law: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Psychologist Scott Peck , 1978, wrote in his book: Life is difficult.

Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump (1994): Life is like a box of chocolates… you never know what you’re going to get.

One day in Boston, Massachusetts, there was this good and upright rabbi - Harold Kushner who was told by the doctors that his 3 year old son Aaron would never grow taller than 3 feet since he suffers the symptoms of progeria “rapid aging.” This news devastated him. He wondered why the God to whom he had been so loyal to could do this to him. And so Harold Kushner contemplated on this mystery of life and came up with his book: “When Bad Things happen to good people.”

The fact of life is: we all suffer blows in life that seem unfair. One day when I was a third grader, my teacher accused me of talking to my seatmate during a test. Then she made me sit at the trash can for the whole period.  That afternoon, I went home crying to my mother: “Mama, my teacher punished me for something I did not do. It’s not fair.” She turned to me and said, “Gigi, that is life. It is never fair.” At the time I thought she was teasing me, but now I realize that she had given me a very important lesson in life.

It seems to be the case with nature. It does not discriminate between good and bad, the faithful and the faithless, the criminals and the saints.  Rain pours on the good and bad alike right? But, why does a poor village have to get wiped out in a landslide because the rich plundered their forest ? Why does a mother lose her baby after all the care she had given? Why do innocent people die when they collide with a drunk driver? 

Why do the good have to suffer?

Many times we blame God, ourselves, everything, when we cannot find an answer and explanation to this question. Somehow, maybe, just maybe, the question isn’t “why do bad things happen to good people?” Probably, the better question to ask is: “What do we do when bad things happen to good people (or us)?”

There is this 1913 novel, Pollyanna (by Eleanor Porter)- a little girl who lived with her poor father. One Christmas Pollyanna was hoping for a doll in the missionary barrel, but she found only a pair of crutches inside. To lift her spirits, her father invented the Glad game: The game consists of finding something to be glad about in every situation. In this case, Pollyanna and her father were glad about the crutches because they didn't need to use them!  When her father died she had to live with her rich but stern and cold spinster Aunt Polly.   When Aunt Polly puts her in a stuffy attic room without carpets or pictures, she rejoiced at the beautiful view from the high window; when the aunt tries to punish her for being late to a dinner of bread and milk in the kitchen with the servant Nancy. Pollyanna thanks her joyfully because she likes bread and milk and she likes Nancy.

Soon Pollyanna taught the game to her neighbors who were inspired by her sunny disposition to life. Until one unfortunate day Pollyanna fell from the top story of the house and lost the use of her legs. She fell into depression. But all the neighbors visited her and told her how she had inspired them to find something to be happy about in every situation. And so, Polyanna did not give up hope that someday, she would be able to walk again. I will not tell you the end of the story, you’ll have to read it yourself.  
     
Let us remember that God allows things to happen for His reasons, whether or not we understand them. We must remember that God is good, just, loving, and merciful. Oftentimes things happen to us that we simply cannot understand. However, instead of doubting God's goodness, maybe it would be better to trust Him. As Proverbs would put it:  “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” (Prov 3:5-6) 

References:

Goldstein, E. (2011). “Bad Things Happen to Good People, But Is It Our Fault?”  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elisha-goldstein-phd/when-bad-things-happen-to_b_829875.html

Levine, Murray. “Pollyanna and the Glad Game: A Potential Contribution to Positive Psychology.” Journal of Positive Psychology 2, no. 4 (2007): 219-227.

Potter, E. H. (1913). “Pollyanna.” Bibliomania.

http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/39/77/frameset.html

4th Sunday Ordinary - Casting out our Emotional Demon

Readings: Deut 18:15-20; 1 Cor. 7:32-35; Mk 1:21-28

Last October, as millions around the world dress in ghostly costumes to mark Halloween and the darker side of life, Pope Francis warned that the devil is no myth and must be fought strenuously with "God's armor." He said: "This generation, and many others, have been led to believe that the devil is a myth, a figure, an idea, the idea of evil. The devil exists and we must fight against him." In another Mass, Pope Francis adds: ‘Some of you might tell me: But Father, how old fashioned you are to speak about the Devil in the 21st century!’ But look out because the devil is present! The devil is here, even in the 21st century! And we mustn’t be naïve. We must learn from the Gospel how to fight against Satan.”

In the gospel of today, we find Jesus driving out an unclean spirit from a man in the synagogue. Jesus performed an exorcism of demons. Whenever he exorcised, he liberated people captive to Satan and delivered them to God (Mat. 12:28-29). In words of the Apostle Peter, "Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him" (Acts 10:38). Today, as Pope Francis warns us, demonic possession is a reality and these unclean spirits have to be driven out. But remember, Satan, the devil, the demon literally means the deceiver. He doesn’t always show himself as frightening, but rather pleasing in order to tempt us and fool us more easily. And many times we fall into his deceit without realizing it.  You see, many times we get so obsessed by the exorcisms of these supernatural demons that we forget that we need to be healed and exorcised of our own demons- our emotional demon. 

Dr. Holy Hunt puts this in a metaphor in her book Emotional Exorcism.

The Emotional Demon originates from our negative and traumatic emotional experiences in childhood. As a Baby or a toddler, you wet yourself; you cry; no one comes. And you think: no one cares for me.

As we grow to childhood, some call us degrading names and use harsh words. “You are stupid. You are selfish. No one will ever love you.”

Then our emotional needs are ignored. They don’t spend time with us. They do not praise our accomplishment but when we mistake we get embarrassing punishments. They never came to see us acting or singing in a school play or struggling to win in a game. These early negative experiences lead us to believe that we are fundamentally defective.

Our Emotional Demon is then created through directly experiencing other people’s destructive words and actions (like whenever we hear the F words and witness the violence around us).  And so we learn to blame ourselves for aversive events that occur in our lives that we did not even cause. We go through life not knowing that our belief of unworthiness is our Emotional Demon- it’s like an unclean computer program – a virus – that has been installed without our awareness or approval. Thus the emotional demon grows every time we blame ourselves for these stressful events that occur in our lives which in reality we are not even at fault.

Since it forms so early through childhood experiences, we go through life believing that we are defective and unworthy of the forgiveness and mercy of God. And worse of all, we don’t realize that it is separate from us –because it is installed without our awareness or approval. We are not our demons.

In the gospel, the person possessed by the unclean spirit was not conscious of what the demon was doing to him. It’s just that the man thought he was bad and that there was no way out of his misery and the unclean spirits fed on that thought that’s why they grew stronger possessing him. Jesus drove out the unclean spirit from the man because He knew that basically that man has goodness in him and that the unclean spirit installed itself unto the man without his awareness or approval. So do you see the similarity now? So the first step for us to be cleansed by Jesus of our emotional demons is to recognize and to be aware that God made us good. And that we are not our demons. And that we can choose to fight and to be cleansed of our emotional demon with the help of Jesus. But why is it so hard to get rid of this emotional demon?

Perhaps Satan's best-kept secret to prevent a person's soul from healing, is to cause them to feel like God is somehow disappointed in them, or even angry with them. If the devil can cause a person to feel like God is not eager to forgive or be merciful to them, this is a sure roadblock to anybody's healing process. This causes a person to distance themselves from the very person (Jesus) who desires to heal them. And so we cannot distance ourselves from God and receive healing to our emotional demons at the same time. We must draw near to Him regardless: that is a key to receiving healing.

In the time of Jesus, there probably were many possessed by demons, but the only ones he was able to heal where those who came near to Him. Many times in confession people tell me, “Father, I keep doing the same crazy stuff everytime. I think it’s hopeless to resist, so I don’t pray anymore and go to Mass anymore since I could not receive Communion.” And I answer: “All the more you need to go to Mass more frequently and let Jesus heal you. It will take time. You just have to persevere.” We have to come and stay near to Jesus and believe that He can heal us even if it takes a long time.

However we make sense of demons today, the message of the Gospel is that Jesus is Lord: it is he who can release us from all kinds of bondage and he alone can empower us to live a new life in service and in praise of God. Let us not be afraid to call on him for healing. He will never abandon us if we but draw near Him.

References:

Hunt, H. (2009). Emotional Exorcism: Expelling the four psychological demons that make us backslide. Greenwood Press, Westport, USA.

Emel, B. (ed.) (2013). "How to manage your emotional demons."  Bounce.

http://thebounceblog.com/2013/06/28/how-to-manage-your-emotional-demons/

Vatican Radio. (2014). “Pope Francis: Satan exists in the 21st century and how we can fight him.”

http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-francis-satan-exists-in-the-21st-century-and

Beliefnet. (2004). “Jesus Christ: Exorcist”

http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/2004/04/Jesus-Christ-Exorcist.aspx?p=1