Catholic Candle note: The following is a letter from a Catholic Candle reader.  We invite our readers to send their own letters and articles.

Dear fellow Catholic Candle readers,

While reciting the Joyful Mysteries I found myself pondering the reason why God allowed the angels to fall.  Would it not have been better to have all the created angels to be in heaven adoring God?  For that matter, would it not have been better if Adam had not sinned and to have all humans obtain heaven and be with God? 

Then I could almost hear what I have heard people say so many times before, “If there is a God and He is so good, then how can there be suffering, sickness, and death in the world?”  I am sure, you, dear fellow-readers, have heard similar things.

How would I refute such questions?

Then, I remembered that the Candle had an article about how men are not created equal and how the fall of the angels and men showed God’s glory more than if these events had not occurred.  The bitter questions of those who do not understand how Providence works make it sound like God is somehow unfair or unjust in His ways.

Then my thoughts went a bit deeper to ponder how God is so provident and He works on all levels from top to bottom, as it were.  How marvelous it truly is that God chose to become Man in the form of a little Baby!  In a cave used as a stable!  For all those people who think that God is unfair, have they ever thought about how He chose such humiliations for Himself?  How is it unfair that He gives us something to suffer and we are sinners and deserve suffering, when He, Who is perfect, showed us such loving examples of how to offer things up out of love for the Heavenly Father?  He didn’t stop there; He suffered so many attacks, humiliations, and such an ignominious death on the Cross!

I couldn’t help contrasting the Blessed Virgin Mary to whom He gave so much, with so many souls to whom God chose to give little.  It is almost overwhelming to contrast the most ignorant and weak savage pagan, to the immaculately conceived Mother of God.  What a remarkable difference between two human creatures of God!  Our Lady is God’s masterpiece.  She had the use of reason from her conception and always served God perfectly. 

God chose to do this and He is not unfair or unjust.  He planned from all eternity to create man and He planned the means He would use to redeem man.  He planned to create a perfect virgin to be the Mother of Wisdom Incarnate.  He also planned that He would give her to us to be our Mother to help us miserable sinners work out our salvation.   He planned that she would be more powerful than all hell put together. 

The most astounding thought of all my contrasting back and forth was that God did all of what He did as a means to foster humility in us.  Whether we think of all of the blessings He has given us from the Faith on down, or whether we see how low we are compared to Mary, the highest of all the saints, we are humbled by these thoughts.  This all made me think how He wants our humility and how He allows all things to help us discover humility, see its beauty, and desire to have this most necessary virtue.  Our Lord told us we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven without humility.  I could not help but be struck how He works out all things in His creation and in particular, in the human race, in order to teach men this foundation of all virtue – humility.   Mary and Blessed Christ Mass, fellow Catholic Candle readers!