A reflection by Br. Stephen Mari La Ja, OP
I felt a pain in my heart as I saw how Typhoon Yolanda ravaged the Visayas. I tried to resist the pain but I could not. Suddenly, I felt a responsibility to help the victims. What I could not do financially, I did prayerfully. I prayed for them. I tried my best to help them in my simple way.
I read about a politician who said after visiting Tacloban “God must be somewhere else.” The typhoon victims probably had the same question. I thought, should these people ask this question to me, what would my answer be? There is a world after this. Ours is only a transitory world. I think, those people who asked about God’s presence in that catastrophic event were those who had less faith in God and forgot that there is a life after death.
In situations like this, we have the opportunity to help others, instead of blaming God, the churches and the government. We can pull our resources together and make a change, a way to overcome the difficulties.
Everything happens for a reason. Every situation, good or bad, has lessons that have to be learned. Typhoon Yolanda taught us that there are things in this world that are beyond our human control. But typhoon Yolanda taught us also that faith can give us hope in a hopeless situation.
Photo credit: Reuters / Romeo Ranoco
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