Passionist spirituality has reflected on this question from the lens of our own Charism that is devoted to the memory of Christ Crucified. We see the Passion of Christ as a redemptive moment for all humanity. This moment suffering and death was a gift of God’s love to us all. It was a moment where God, through Jesus, took on our own suffering, injustice and pain. God’s incarnation with humanity was complete as it touched on all aspects of our humanity including our moments of suffering, despair and death. But even with this theology we continue to witness unimaginable suffering where we wonder what redeeming purpose could possibly come out of it.      

With this topic I would like to offer the Book of Job as a suggestion for theological reflection. This was exactly the question that the Jewish community faced with the Babylonian captivity because until then they thought that God’s action were always good and just (from their own perspective of what is good and just) and where equally confused about the actions of God when this cataclysmic event took place in their own time. The Temple was destroyed, many had been killed and executed including the entire royal family, and the remnant where exiled to Babylon where they thought they would perish. Out of this comes the Book of Job. In this Book the Israelites rework a new theology about how God can function in a way we can appreciate when evil events indiscriminately are allowed to happen. Job asks the question: “We accept good things from God; and should we not accept evil?”

In this book Job ultimately breaks down and becomes angry with God. Many of us can feel this anger with God right now. In Chapter 38 God responds back to Job by humbling Job back into his place within creation:

“Who is this that obscures divine plans with words of ignorance? Gird up your loins now like a man: I will question you, and you tell me the answers! Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its size; do you know? Who stretched out the measuring line for it? Into what were its pedestals sunk, And who laid the cornerstone?”

This may strike us as harsh but basically God is telling Job and reminding us all that we cannot measure the greater good and evil from our own narrow vantage point. The evil that Job faced, the evil that Israel faced and the evil that Haiti faces today has some purpose. We cannot imagine what purpose could possibly justify such an action but since we are not the authors of Creation (as God reminds Job) then we are to relegate this into the realm of faith.

As Lord Alfred Tennyson had said: “Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.”

In the principles of Catholic social teaching we are taught about the common good in this way. We are taught that God alone is good (Luke 18:19) and of course God is the sole author of all creation. The good we seek as Catholics is not our own good but the common good that “embraces the sum total of all those conditions of social life which enable individuals, families, and organizations to achieve complete an effective fulfillment.” (Mater et Magistra #74) Whatever universal good can possibly come out of this event God alone only knows, but we are left with doing what we can to build the common good in a place and with a people that have been absolutely devastated. The earthquake took place, and we are powerless to control what has already taken place. The issue for us is not to dwell on this but to act. We must act to promote the good to our Haitian brothers and sisters who are currently suffering from so much evil.