This article by Mary Craig originally appearedunder the title, "Take Up Your Cross," in The Way, January, 1973.It has been regendered, edited and adapted byJohn Veltri, S.J. and Rev. Jean Mitchell in 1996.At the time of its original publicationMary Craig was the mother of three boysand a free-lance journalist and broadcaster.She was writing regularly for BBC Radio of London.In the introduction to Elie Wiesel's sad story Night about ayoung Jewish boy's gradual loss of faith in the midst of theholocaust, Francois Mauriac wrote about his own powerlessness tohelp, "... I could only embrace him weeping." Mauriac could notshare that the stumbling block to the boy's faith -- the Jew on thecross -- was the cornerstone of his own.There have been many events in recent history to which the onlyimmediate response possible was tears followed by the anguishedquestion "Why?" The slaughter of the Jews, the annihilation ofHiroshima, the massacres in Africa, the plundering of Third Worldeconomies with starving families and children, the genocide inCambodia -- why must such horrible things happen? God standsaccused! If I were God, we think, I should never allow suchsuffering! On the face of things, we have two alternatives toexplain suffering -- either the universe is governed by a cruel,vengeful God who delights in torturing the innocent; or there isno God and we drift through time in total absurdity.But there is another possible explanation. Our images of God,generated from our own human projections, often prevent us fromunderstanding things as they really are. To make us human anddistinct from other levels of creation, our creator gave us theability to make choices. If we are to exercise this innate ability,it follows that we must be able to abuse it. If God were tointervene in our decisions, wrong actions would be impossible, ourability to make choices would be meaningless, and we would be nomore than robots. The price of our freedom is pain and suffering,a price that must be paid. Kierkegaard wrote that, if being humanwere only a variation of animal life on the one hand or ofangelic life on the other, humans would not be the prey of anguish.It is we who first turn our world awry, and then we reap theharvest -- either ourselves or our children or our children'schildren. Throughout the ages, human beings have destroyed theirharmony and at-one-ness with the world and introduced discordanceeverywhere. We humans, not God, have produced the instruments oftorture and destruction and have devised ever more effective meansof enslaving or terrorizing other human beings. It is our greed orstupidity or blindness that has caused the inequalities and theinjustices in our societies. And God, who foresaw all theinhumanities that we would perpetrate on others and on our world,stepped into our ranks through the Word made flesh to show us theway to love and become reconciled.
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