God's Redeeming Grace

AMDG

I, a would-be-theologian and aspiring intellectual who is more intuitively a gardener and a daydreamer, to you, my fellow dreamer and student. Grace and peace.

Since January 1st, I have been following Fr. Mike Schmitz’s Catechism in a Year program. Paragraphs 309-314, “Providence and the Scandal of Evil,” were particularly good. (You can find the episode here or read just the subject text here). The authors don’t address the whole topic of evil, and in fact acknowledge that “…no quick answer will suffice. Only Christian faith as a whole constitutes the answer to this question…” Yet in the context of God as a good—or the good—Parent, Creator, and Provider, the authors explain how God does not merely stand by and allow us to suffer in the consequences of all our unrighteous free choices, but in God’s providence God often raises good out of the evil.

About the same time Catechism in a Year made it to this section, dark news about Jean Vanier swept through the church. Strongly influenced by his own spiritual mentor, Jean Vanier created a Catholic community in the mid-1900s as a front to continue heretical religious practices and to enable himself to serially psychologically and sexually abuse or mistreat women. At the same time, he had a legitimate love for those with intellectual disabilities, and his community not only provided a real service to people with and without intellectual disabilities but became the first of a global network of such communities. This network, l’Arche, remains a strong and godly institution doing good work. So here, God raised so much good out of an evil seed.

I do not believe that all evil turns out for good. I do not celebrate every misfortune. But we can have faith that God is at work in the world around us.

Although I had never heard the name Jean Vanier until this year, he was formerly regarded by many as a saint. To echo a point raised on the Jesuitical podcast (here but you have to scroll to the episode), abandoning Vanier as a complete villain would be an oversimplification. He did good and bad. He also existed in a context that shaped him and enabled him. Perhaps it was on the prayers of the other members of l’Arche that God redeemed the community into such a blessing, or perhaps God honored Vanier’s own prayers and created something good with him. In either case, this too is a cause for hope. Not only when we encounter evil out in the world is God mysteriously shaping it toward good, but also when we ourselves are choosing evil. When we act out of impure intentions, when we do what is bad, even when we are just not being good images of God, God is also here tending our garden and redeeming our works. And that is a great comfort.

So we accept our own imperfections, our own moral frailty, our own failures of past, present, and future. We are not too hard on ourselves, or on others, but ceaselessly persevere in repentance and love and hope and especially in prayer. For in loving the Divine we imitate it, and in prayer we open ourselves to its influence.

Pray for me and for the church. I pray for you.

Peace,

Your Other Brother

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