Originally published at Southern Cross
By Ricardo Márquez
We struggle to understand, to answer questions that arise from desperation and heartbreaking pain. To see images of people fleeing from one place to another, with their few possessions in a cart or crammed into a car, fearing they will be bombed; to hear the cries of those who lost the house they struggled to build to a tornado; to learn about the deaths of defenseless elders and children in indiscriminate attacks … all provoke cries that sadly do not have immediate responses.
Our humanity has lived similar times when death, plagues, violence and natural catastrophes made themselves present. The Bible gathers in the psalms those universal screams of pain and despair that emerge from the depths of this existence: “O God, why have You cast us off forever?” (Psalm 74:1); “Fear and trembling have beset me; horror has overwhelmed me” (Psalm 55:5).
These are the moments in which we ask ourselves or we are asked: “Where is God?” or “Where is your God?” These moments of doubt and confusion challenge our conceptions and beliefs about the mystery of God. Everyone relies on the arguments and beliefs that they learned and cultivated. It is not easy, nor are
