"The Risk of Allowing Love is That We Can Use Free Will to Hate"

Kathryn Jean Lopez is taking on the question many of us are asking, if only to ourselves - Why Does God Allow an Eight-Year-Old Boy to be Killed Waiting for His Dad at the Finish Line?

From a summary of a conversation on The Good Catholic Life, a Boston-area radio program yesterday:

God never wants evil to happen in the world. When a modern Cain kills his brother, God grieves. We can’t imagine what it’s like to lose one child like three families did yesterday. God lost three children. The only way to stop what happened yesterday was for God to eliminate human freedom. The risk of allowing love is that we can use free will to hate. Jesus changed even our suffering into opportunities for goodness.
He noted that God’s direct will is that every single one of us become a saint in heaven, but he permits things as a result of our freedom in order to prevent a greater evil. This is God’s permissive will. God will bring good out of this evil.

And how about this in response to evil? Work as hard or harder that those who work in law enforcement, medicine, and Homeland Security in the wake of the Boston marathon attack, taking up prayer as our weapons and armor. 

She's not quite done... finish with her.

The line that sticks out for me is the line I used in the title.  

We each have choices to make... do we love... or do we hate.

Of course, that choice requires an understanding of what love and hate are, and what they are not.

The world is quick to confuse the two.  

We are not, however, of this world.

We are called to do something that matters and it is my strong belief and opinion that Christ, through His body The Church, gives us the best guidance as to what that something is.

Carry on.