It seems fitting, as today we commemorate Jesus Christ tried and falsely accused, and suffering the death of a criminal after his betrayal by an intimate friend, to record a recent online conversation of mine.
It started with this question, posed to me apropos mutual acquaintances who are experiencing quite extraordinary suffering, ‘Why can’t misfortunes be shared out more equally?’
Some time later I came up with a quote from Teresa of Avila which I thought went a long way towards
answering that query:
God gives more ‘misfortune’ to the
people he loves most and to the people he wants to draw into divine intimacy,
and less to those he loves least, the reason being that ‘misfortune’ has the
power to make us turn to God and discover how much he loves us. We are perfected
in love precisely by ‘misfortune’. (Quote marks, mine.)
My online correspondent was right on to it. He recalled the case of a good man who shortly after losing his eldest son by drowning many years ago was wrongly tried for manslaughter (he was acquitted).
The man actually responsible for the death was his
best friend, who subsequently got him wrongfully dismissed from his job (with six children to support), and who went on to live a successful
and presumably tranquil life (occasionally he had letters appearing in the Dom Post)
and who died finally in his late nineties.
My correspondent's comment on my Teresian quote was, 'Ha! Mr X and his 'best friend'.
I said, 'Exactly'.
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