Are our sufferings retribution for our guilt? The greater our guilt, the greater our suffering? Job's friends, in the famous Old Testament book, answered those questions with a resounding yes. The Lord, in today's Gospel reading, categorically says "no" to these beliefs. The Psalmist had already said, "God does not deal with us according to our sins" (Psalm 103:10).

There is still more to the mystery of human suffering. Why do good people experience great suffering? We wonder: Is there innocent suffering in this world? Again, the Lord answers this question with a categorical "no."  There is no innocent suffering. He reminds us that we are all guilty. This answer needs some elaboration.

When it comes to any human being born under original sin, their suffering will never be innocent. As far as divine justice is concerned, all sinners deserve punishment. Only the human beings who did not have the sinful condition, will only be the ones whose suffering will be innocent. In this case, the only human beings who have suffered innocently have been the Son of God (a man except for sin) and his most holy Mother (who was conceived without sin). The Lord's suffering, his painful Passion and Death, was for the sake of others, for the sake of all human beings, all sinners. The Lord's suffering was above all "Saving” and "Redeeming” suffering.

Here we can return to the previous question: Why do good people experience great suffering? The experience of the Lord's suffering helps us understand that good people who suffer terribly do so on behalf of others. Good people who suffer, mysteriously and incomprehensibly to human reason, are truly "privileged" to lend their bodies for the salvation of other souls.

We Catholics use an expression to invite people to see their suffering as a blessing for others. Taught by St. Paul, we say “Offer it up.” St. Paul wrote to the Colossians, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church” (1:24). We need to keep this in mind when we suffer. Our sufferings can lead us to exhaust our patience. Offering our sufferings with faith can sustain us in moments of despair and help us avoid bitterness.

Today's Gospel reading was an ordinary conversation of daily life in the Lord's time. People were discussing the news of the day, especially those about injustices and disasters. It is very interesting how the Lord commented on that news. The Lord told the people that the only thing they could learn from those injustices and disasters was the need for their own conversion: “I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!”

People who suffer from human injustices or natural disasters do not do so because they are greater sinners than everyone else. That punishment they received does not correspond to their guilt, but their punishment has already come. We, for whom the great punishments have not yet come, will not always be exempt from them. From the suffering of others, we can only learn to take our own conversion seriously.

There is an urgency in the Lord's warning. Conversion is for now, while we still have time. This is the lesson of the parable of the fruitless fig tree. God's patience runs out, not because his love and mercy are finite. God's patience runs out because we are finite, and the time will inevitably come when we can no longer postpone God's judgment. And God's judgment will be about nothing less than to have access to God's infinite forgiveness for eternity.

The Church is the gardener who intercedes for the fruitless fig tree, for souls stubborn in sin. Let us humbly ask the Lord to grant us all the grace to take conversion seriously.