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Question

Father Angelo,

there’re moments when I can’t feel empathy for nothing and no one. Sometimes life seems to be only an evil and sadistic spite which hurts people, a struggle for life in which we are dominated by nature whims (cold, floods, hot, drought, hurricanes, earthquakes, eruptions, meteorites), by body’s whims (hungry, thirsty, diseases, old age) and by our sinful impulses. Life seems to be made for who is strongest and able to adapt himself to the environment and to the society. Furthermore, great lies about thinking positively and being optimistic are told and those who tell these lies are right those who don’t believe in life over death.

How can I be positive if my interlocutor wants to deny me the only hope worthy of belief (that death is not the end of all)? If you deny this hope, all other hopes are not hopes but they’re illusions. How can I thank my parents for having generated me if this cryful and painful life doesn’t go further itself? You, father who claims your atheism as a sign of modernity and ease, how can you pretend that your sons thank you? Why have you generated me? Are getting me to work lifelong with fatigue, getting me to suffer and, at the end, getting me to turn to dust the only reasons? Why have you wasted effort, time and sacrifices for me if then we have to end in nothing? Mother, you suffered a lot for giving me birth…you’d better enjoy yourself and enjoy life. How can I understand your suffering if all have to turn to dust? Even the greatest sacrifice, the greatest pain and the greatest dedication can’t affect me if death is the finish of all. Especially, how can I accept rules or gerarchy if there is nothing over death? They would be inhibitions, moralistic and puritanical constrictions. How many empty sermons we tell when we forget our Creator! Even better actions lose their sense because they would be acted by a creature which is poor and wounded by the original sin, that is man. Refusing God and transcendence, life is considered only like a pleasure hunting. But cause our heart can’t be satisfied by nothing which is less then God, the sense of loss progressively grows; in some cases it becomes intolerable and people commit suicide. We would never accept evil, suffering and illness by just our strengths. How many psychologists lie telling that man is able to accept a life full of contradiction and pain and without sense! They put on the shoulders of their patients a burden which neither they can bear.

How many times I’ve desired to die or I have thought to kill myself, but Divine Mercy has given me survival instinct and the fear of God and has prohibitted me atheism. I can’t “manage” to be atheist anymore because even just a moment of atheism could be fatal, considering my situation.

God has put the Passion, the Death and the Resurrection of Christ in front of me: that is He has shown me the only reason for which life is worthy of being lived.

Moreover, He has put me in front of the perfect enmity between a human creature (Virgin Mary) and the Devil. 

However I feel myself empty yet because demons also “laugh” behind atheists, believing is not sufficient: It is easier overcoming atheism than sin. Sin attracts me more than atheism. I just can’t go to Confession because I see a tide of sins so great that it makes me blind. I’ve created from my own a darkness which partially doesn’t allow me to differentiate between good and evil and, especially, doesn’t allow me to think about the future. 

Despite this, whatever activity I do or place I go, I cannot “run away from” Christ’s appeal anymore, also when not being careful of it would be more comfortable. When I commit a sin, I feel a sweet suggestion to fly high, to quench my thirst in Christ, to leave the water that doesn’t quench or indeed poisons. At the same time I also feel a contrary force which pulls me down and towards the abyss. Here I shout at Christ asking for the awareness of sin and asking Him for removing from me the torment of guilt or the torment of scruples.

As regarding natural empathy (natural sight) which I haven’t towards people nor things (it can be also named “natural sympathy”), I hope at least that the Lord would give me his Saint Sight (supernatural sympathy) towards people and things.

I greet you sincerely. 

Answer of the priest

Dearest,

I fully and sincerely share your reflections.

I want to underline some of them. 

1. “Even the greatest sacrifice, the greatest pain and the greatest dedication can’t affect me if death is the finish of all”.

There’s no comment. 

Also two great christian thinkers of the 20th century, Jacques and Raissa Maritain, when they were not christian yet decided to put an end to their existence if they wouldn’t reach to understand its sense. 

2. “Especially, how can I accept rules or gerarchy if there is nothing over death? It would be inhibitions, moralistic and puritanical constrictions”.

The great russian thinker Fëdor Dostoevskij wrote more or less these words: If God doesn’t exist I can do what I want.

He didn’t refer to crime, he didn’t refer to this.

However if there is no aim to achieve (in our case the aim is the life in communion with God and this life can only be holy), rules have no sense.

Instead, if there is an aim, there should be a way in order to reach it.

This is the way you will hear about in the first reading of the Mass of next Sunday (third Sunday of Advent, year a):”A highway will be there, called the holy way. Those whom the Lord has ransomed will return on it” (Is 35,8).

3. “Refusing God and transcendence, life is considered only like a pleasure hunting. But cause our heart can’t be satisfied by nothing which is less then God, the sense of loss progressively grows; in some cases it becomes intolerable and people commit suicide. We would never accept evil, suffering and illness by just our strengths”.

You can find this thought, in other words, also in the Holy Scripture:

“If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all. (…).

If the dead are not raised: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die”. (1Cor 15,19.32)

4. “How many times I’ve desired to die or I have thought to kill myself, but Divine Mercy has given me survival instinct and the fear of God and has prohibitted me atheism. I can’t “manage” to be atheist anymore because even just a moment of atheism could be fatal, considering my situation”.

Yes, you’re right: Lord’s Mercy doesn’t allow us to take steps which would be fatal.

Also St. Therese of the Child Jesus asked Jesus to get away from her meds while she was suffering grueling pains. She would use them in a bad way.

Only the thought of God and of eternal life gave her strengths.

5. “God has put the Passion, the Death and the Resurrection of Christ in front of me: that is He has shown me the only reason for which life is worthy of being lived. Moreover, He has put me in front of the perfect enmity between a human creature (Virgin Mary) and the Devil”. 

Yes, in dead and risen Christ God has shown to man the full meaning of his life.

What is accomplished in Christ is now attending to be accomplished in the life of each of us.

Yes, here there is the sense of whole life: a life given in Christ, a life which is newfounded in the glorious communion in Heaven. 

And then Our Lady, who stands next to us like an army deployed against the hell (cfr. Song of Songs 6,10).

6. “Demons also “laugh” behind atheists, believing is not sufficient: It is easier overcoming atheism than sin. Sin attracts me more than atheism”.

Yes, demons tauntingly laugh at atheists. It seems they say: we’ve done it with them.

But it is quite true that “it is easier overcoming atheism than sin”.

Even a child can overcome atheism. 

But man – by himself – cannot overcome sin: he needs grace.

7. “I just can’t go to Confession because I see a tide of sins so great that it makes me blind. I’ve created from my own a darkness which partially doesn’t allow me to differentiate between good and evil and, especially, doesn’t allow me to think about the future”.

Instead, you right need confession in order to come back able to see. 

Also to you, who are spiritually blind (as you defined yourself), the Lord strongly says what He has already told another blind:”Go wash in the Pool of Siloam (which means Sent)” (John 9,7).  

The holy text goes on:”So he went and washed, and came back able to see”.

The Sent is waiting for you, He wants to make you come back able to see, make you lightful and also – I’m sure about it – make you a light for many others.

Thank you for this reflection so rich and deep.

You deserve a particular prayer from me and I’ll do it at once, while I’m preparing for the celebration of the Holy Mass and then particularly during the Holy Sacrifice and the Holy Communion.

I bless you and I wish you a Holy Christmas (2019).

Father Angelo