Stephen Colbert’s father and two of his brothers died in a 1974 plane crash when he was 10. Anderson Cooper’s father died of a heart attack when he was also 10 years old and his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, died in June.
Cooper asks the comedian Colbert, you said: “What punishments of God are not gifts?”, a quote Colbert borrowed from J.R.R. Tolkien, Do you really believe that?” Cooper asked.
Drawing further from Tolkien, who also experienced tragedy at a young age, Colbert replied: “It’s a gift to exist, and with existence comes suffering, there is no escaping that”
The Cross of Our Lord compels us to confront the dark places within us and the agonies of the human condition. Catholics do not look away from the Cross. Crucifixes are front-and-center in our churches. We wear them around our necks and hang them in our homes. They are a reminder that the Resurrection cannot come before the Crucifixion. This is just as true in our own lives as it was for our Redeemer. As Colbert so poignantly puts it “There is no escaping that”
Colbert credits his faith with helping him to work through the devastating loss, noting: “We’re asked to accept the world that God gives us and to accept it with love. If God is everywhere, and God is in everything, then the world as it is is all just an expression of God and his love, and you have to accept it with gratitude.”
X (formerly Twitter) Colbert also recounts how his Mother’s love for God and praying to the Blessed Mother gave her strength through that difficult time. “She knows what it is to lose a child”
He inherited the Crucifix hanging on his wall from her.
www.facebook.com Watch Colbert and musician Jake White have a Catholic Throwdown You can find the video in Catholic Celebrities