“Pain and disease can paralyze one as a human being. They can shatter one to pieces, not only physically, but also psychologically and spiritually. However, they can also smash down complacency and spiritual lethargy and lead one to find oneself for the first time. The struggle with suffering is the place of human decision-making par excellence. Here …
“The sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is particularly manifest in infant Baptism. The Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptism shortly after birth.” 1250, The Catholic Catechism
“Where is my faith?” . . . “Even deep down… there is nothing but emptiness and darkness. . . If there be God — please forgive me.” . . . “Such deep longing for God… Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal,”“What do I labor for?” . . . “If there be no God, …
