Where God Is

In Elie Wiesel’s short but powerful book, Night, there is an account of the hanging of those who collaborated against the Nazi’s in a camp. One of those people was a young boy whose hanging was not a quick and “easy” death. The people of the camp were forced to watch his final struggles as he hung there. The main character recalls this:

“Where is God? Where is He?” someone behind me asked. ... For more than half an hour [the child in the noose] stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. ... Behind me, I heard the same man asking: “Where is God now?”

And I heard a voice within me answer him: “Where is He? Here He is—He is hanging here on this gallows. . . .”

The events of Wednesday morning and the horrific mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis have been on my mind all week. I am sure they have been on yours too. Sadly, this is the latest episode in the seemingly inevitable reality of violence in our nation and the suffering of the innocent. I wish I didn’t have to think about it; I wish it never had happened. In fact, I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to look it in the eyes. After all, there’s so much else going on in the world, good and bad, that it’s hard to keep up.

In fact, by the end of the day on Wednesday, even as our Catholic hearts ached for this parish and school family, my Facebook and Instagram feeds were full of other news – like Cracker Barrell and Taylor Swift’s engagement. The world, it seemed, wanted to move on, and it wanted to take us with it. And many times, in the face of sadness and hardship, we are all too happy for a distraction. I know I am. The readings for this weekend don’t seem to say anything about a shooting in a church in Minnesota, so why should I dwell on it.

However, the readings this weekend do come to me and call me a “child,” like so many of those kids at Mass in Minneapolis. And they urge me to humility and lowliness. And I believe that there is a connection between what we endure in life and the Word of God; because that Word is alive, and God loves us – even when it’s hard to see. The solution to suufering is not happiness or the distraction of the world. This solution is in meaning. Purpose.

That purpose is something I saw in a poignant photograph of a mother racing to the site of the shooting to find her child. When you have a true “why,” you can endure any “how.” She was not on Facebook or Instagram. She was not interested in what Fox News or CNN was saying. She was racing into suffering because of Love. Just like Jesus.

I think this is where we find ourselves before the Word of God today. Jesus is speaking about banquets and places of honor. He is clear about where His disciples should want to be.

If you want a place of honor – or at least think you have a place of honor – then pay attention to the powerful, the rich, the influential. They can distract you well enough. However, when you choose the lower places, the humbler places, with the lowly, poor, grieving, and suffering, then you cannot ignore tragedy and hardship. You cannot ignore suffering. And there is so much of it, unfortunately. I get it; it can be exhausting. That’s why we have diversions in our lives. But we cannot allow those diversions to eclipse the human suffering that others endure – particularly if we want to be where Jesus is. Because, friends, that is where Jesus chooses to be. Jesus doesn’t just want us to take the lowest place only so that we can be rewarded for our humility; He wants us to take that place because that is where He is! And He wants us to be with Him! That is the paradox of humility; that is how we are exalted by humbling ourselves. And it is all Jesus’ doing.

There’s been some bickering back and forth about “thoughts and prayers are not enough,” or that they don’t help. However, the minute we actually believe that prayer is not helpful is the moment when evil triumphs over us. A prayer may not heal a wound or cure cancer, but it will unite me to the One who took on human suffering for our salvation, who offers true healing. A prayer may not build a church, but it will connect me with the God whose house the church is. A prayer will not bring back those children who were killed or soothe the injured, but it does remind us that we are all that family of faith who is affected by tragedy and saved by Jesus Christ our Lord. Prayer places us with the lowly.

Mother Teresa – certainly a woman of real action – saw the connection between prayer, compassion, and action. She said, “The fruit of prayer is faith; the fruit of faith is love; the fruit of love is service; and the fruit of service is peace.” That is where we must be if we want to pursue peace in our nation and our world.

This week we were shown, yet again, the face of evil. “Where was God?” He was in that church, in those children, teachers, and staff. He can be in us too, if we choose that lowly place.

Jesus teaches us that if we want to see Him – to know God and where He is – then we must place ourselves with the smallest, the weakest, the suffering, the heartbroken. That may not look good on Instagram, but it certainly gets us noticed by God.