Lent with the Early Church Fathers Day 30

Day 30

Lent with the Early Church Fathers

A daily post from Tom Bandy 

Based on A Year with the Church Fathers (Ed. Mike Aquilina, St. Benedict Press, 2010) 

Learn to distinguish what really matters… 

Augustine 

In this world we learn to bear calmly the bad things that happen even to good people and hold cheap the blessings that even the wicked enjoy. 

So, even when we cannot see God’s justice, his teaching is beneficial. We do not know by what judgment of God this good man or woman is poor and that bad man or woman is rich – why someone we think should suffer acutely for his or her worthless life enjoys themselves, while misery follow someone else whose commendable life makes us think they should be happy. 

But although we don’t know why these things are done or allowed by God (in whom there is the highest virtues, the highest wisdom, the highest justice, no infirmity, no rashness, no unrighteousness), it is still beneficial for us to learn to hold cheap those things – good or bad – that come to good and bad people indifferently, and to learn to covet with those good things that belong only to the good, and flee those evils that belong only to the evil. 

TGB: Faith is not an “answer” to the problem of evil in the world, but the way to find strength in times of trouble, guidance in the midst of confusion, and (most of all) purposefulness in all our decisions.