Help the disaster victims

Our God, the God of Christ or the Christian God is an elusive God. He respects human freedom and in order not to force us to believe in Him and to love Him, God is rather elusive. His presence is not very obvious. We need to apply our faith as well as our reasons to know God.
Theologians are experts who seek an understanding of faith in rational terms. They say that God is all-loving and almighty. Immediately, this claim encounters difficulties. Ancient Greek philosophers had reasoned that the two concepts, viz. all-loving and almighty, did not work well together. If God is all-loving, why does He allow sufferings on earth? If God is almighty, why does He not stop sufferings on earth? Either He is not almighty or He is almighty but not all-loving. The existence of sufferings on earth is an embarrassment to the God of the theologians.
For ordinary sufferings in our daily life, we can point our fingers to the evil hearts of our neighbours. They are ambitious and they are greedy. They are jealous and they are lazy ... Consequently, someone has to bear the outcomes and we Christians are generous people. Naturally, we suffer more than the others. God is acquitted of these kind of sufferings. But what about natural disasters, the typhoon that devastated Myanmar and the earthquake that rocked Sichuan? Hundreds of thousands of innocent lives are lost. Christians, where was your God when these disasters struck? Unfortunately, the Christian God is very elusive. His line is currently very busy. Leave a message of your curiosity. He will definitely find time to call you back. In the meantime, donate money to help the disaster victims.
It is difficult to defend God's position. We can only stand in awe before these elements of the nature. What is man, but an arrogant ape currently occupying the apex of the evolutionary ladder. They butcher each other in millions. Such atrocities dwarf the devastation of natural disasters. Yet, an all-loving and almighty God is not supposed to take any innocent life. Why didn't He create a better world without killer typhoons and earthquakes? I have no ready defence. It is a mystery which I am not capable of fathoming.

Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures (James 1:18).
St. Paul also mentions 'first fruits' in 1 Corinthians 15:20, 23. He refers to Christ. His resurrection makes him the first fruits of the dead. He is our guarantee of eternal life. St. Paul also mentions us as the 'first fruits' in Romans 8:23 in relation to the whole creation. Both James and Paul saw us as the first fruits of the salvation of the whole creation.
In the beginning when God created the whole universe, He saw that it was good. Somewhere along the line, it became flawed. Man pollutes the environment. The environment fights back. But this is only a very recent episode in the long history of evolution. Long before man polluted the environment, man had suffered from the elements. Therefore, we should not put the blame on pollution. Rather, we are but tiny, insignificant but numerous creatures on this planet which has a life of its own. When it sneezes and cough, millions of men perish. It is just natural. But our existence on this planet must somehow be essential to the well-being of this planet. That is why both James and Paul called us the 'first fruits' of creation which awaits salvation, a return and reconciliation to the Creator.

My Advocate, I pray for the victims and their relatives in these disasters. May they and their countries recover soon. May we learn from these painful experiences our proper position in the creation. I firmly believe that when disasters strike, it is also a time of abundant grace.
Our Lady, see how your children suffer. Console them, comfort them. Amen.