Time of Tragedy
By Miriam Hogan, O.C.D.
St. Thérèse, who has been proclaimed a “Doctor for the 21st Century,” knew the stress of tragedy and loss in her short life. Yet, she responded in a heroic and positive manner.1
Perhaps her “Little Way” of confidence and love of God, based on the Gospel, is still the best way for many of us to respond to the unexpected and tragic events in our lives.
On a large scale, 9/11 has changed the way we view our American Society. In the past year, a number of our basic values and ideals have been highlighted in the daily news for our examination and our imagination. Most of us have experienced as never before, both feelings of fear and vulnerability. We can ask how best to respond in a loving and positive manner to the political “signs of our times.” No less important to us as individuals on a smaller scale, in our private lives, many of us have experienced the loss of a loved one or the diagnosis of unexpected illness or disease. How does such tragedy relate to our relationship with God?
For Thérèse, the answer was immediate and clear. “Everything is a grace.”2 At first this statement may strike one as a bit simplistic, but when we recall that it was made just a short time before she died (Sept. 30, 1897), we can begin to appreciate some of its depth and meaning. We know that Thérèse did not receive pain killers for her tuberculosis and when she was asked, “What about your ‘little life’ now?” she answered: “My ‘little life’ is to suffer; that’s it!”3 There was no pretense.
She died in both excruciating physical pain and spiritual darkness. Yet, we know also that this was not the end of the story. Thérèse has made good on her promise to “spend her heaven doing good on earth” over and over again. The spirit of the little French girl continues to encourage us to deepen our lives of faith and to trust in God with “confidence and love”.
One of my philosophy (Ethics) teachers, Austin Fagothey, S.J., said in class one day that “someone who is diagnosed with terminal cancer can choose to rail against both God and Man or to use it to gain heaven.” Either way you still have the cancer!4 This statement made an impression upon me when it was made. However, recalling this statement a few years later (1975), when Father Fagothey was himself diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus and given only a few months to live, it made a much deeper impression. In the months to follow, we could see that he put into practice all that he had taught.
Here, I would like to suggest that the events of our recent history present us with a similar choice. We can even use the tragedy of 9/11 to grow closer to God. Yet, why there is tragedy and why the innocent have to suffer, seems to me to be a question that we cannot answer. Nor perhaps is it even good to spend much time trying to probe and give reasons for what may be better accepted as mystery. Further, sometimes people say that these things happen because of sin or that they fail to happen because of some good acts. This kind of reasoning is addressed in the scriptures in the words of Jesus: “Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, No...” (Luke 13:2)
Perhaps rather than ask why such an experience has happened, we might find it more helpful to ask how we can endure what seems beyond our mere human capacity? We know that immediately after 9/11 there was an outpouring of expressed devotion to family, God and country. People reached out and worked to save others. Just to give one example, it was with tremendous courage that the firemen were running into the buildings that others were running out of. It will take years for us to process just a few of the thousands of individual stories and to continue the healing process as individuals and as a society. Now, we join others in praying for peace coming before our God with empty hands, but like St. Thérèse with renewed confidence and love.
Finally, tragedy brings us close to both the demons and the angels. My belief is that in the end, the ancient Wisdom of the Desert Fathers applies to our modern world also as they observed that: When someone has been someplace close to God, “silence makes more sense than a lot of words.”
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1 To give a few examples: Thérèse lost her mother when she was four years old. (1877) When Thérèse was nine years old, her sister, Pauline, whom she chose as her second mother, entered Carmel (1882). In 1887, her father, whom she loved dearly, had his first attack of paralysis and became mentally ill and died in 1894.
2Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Trans. John Clarke, O.C.D. (Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1972) p. 266.
3Ibid., p. 265.
4Fr. Austin J. Fagothery, S.J. (1901-1975), was Chairman of the philosophy department at the University of Santa Clara and author of Right and Reason.
Everything is a grace!