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Portrait of Pope Leo XIV. By Edgar Beltrán, The Pillar. I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license: w:en:Creative Commons attribution share alike. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. You are free: to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work ...
By Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture, Sep 19, 2025
Jeffrey Mirus holds a Ph.D. in intellectual history from Princeton University. A co-founder of Christendom College, he also pioneered Catholic Internet services. He is the founder of Trinity Communications and CatholicCulture.org. See full bio.
Sometimes when I awaken in a complaining mood, I think of a remarkable Scriptural explanation of how God deals with those whom He has strongly called to know and serve him, as compared with those to whom He has not revealed Himself so fully. You will find this in the second book of Maccabees when the sacred writer reflects on the sufferings of the Jewish people under a succession of pagan kings in the period just before the birth of Christ:
Now I urge those who read this book not to be depressed by such calamities, but to recognize that those punishments were designed not to destroy but to discipline our people. In fact, not to let the impious alone for long, but to punish them immediately, is a sign of great kindness. For in the case of the other nations the Lord waits patiently to punish them until they have reached the full measure of their sins; but he does not deal in this way with us, in order that he may not take vengeance on us afterward when our sins have reached their height. Therefore he never withdraws his mercy from us. Though he disciplines us with calamities, he does not forsake his own people. Let what we have said serve as a reminder; we must go on briefly with the story. [2 Mac 6:2-17] …..
