Pain, suffering and human mortality shouldn't be explained away, ignored or denied, but embraced by faith in God, said an expert in the philosophy and ethics of science. In fact, only a concrete encounter with the Lord can provide solace for people grappling with the question of how there can be a God who is good when there is also agony and death, especially of innocent children, said Evandro Agazzi, a member of the Italian National Committee for Bioethics and the Committee for the Ethics of Research and Bioethics of the Italian National Research Council. Agazzi, an Italian philosopher, physicist and mathematician, was the guest speaker at a September 17 lecture organized by the Ut Vitam Habeant Foundation -- a Rome-based Catholic foundation, headed by Cardinal Elio Sgreccia. People's faith and trust in a benevolent God have been challenged for millennia by the existence of death, pain and suffering, especially when such ills were not considered to be the direct result of moral evil, Agazzi told an audience of more than 250 people. Ancient philosophers and other thinkers have proposed a wide variety of approaches: passive resignation; a cynical frustration that laments the burden of life; "death as liberation, so we need to get life over with as soon as possible"; or a naive belief in the harmony of nature, which will make sure all the bad will be balanced out by the good. "The real problem was the meaning of pain and suffering" and one's response to it, he said.
Born during the turbulent era of the French Revolution, Saint Jeanne Jugan rose above hardship and a lack of formal schooling to become a profound vessel of Christ’s mercy. After losing her father at a young age and working through her youth as a kitchen maid and nurse, her life radically changed one freezing night when she encountered a blind, paralyzed elderly woman with nowhere to go. Jeanne carried the woman back to her own home, placed her in her own bed, and began a lifelong mission of radical hospitality. This act of profound love blossomed into the Little Sisters of the Poor , a thriving community dedicated to sheltering and honoring the destitute elderly. Despite later facing heavy trials—including being unjustly sidelined and stripped of her leadership by a controlling chaplain—Jeanne accepted her obscurity and exile with a joyful spirit, resting her complete trust in God's hidden providence until her death in 1879. In our daily lives, Saint Jeanne Jugan invites us to lo...