Trust in Divine Providence

We dream and plan and imagine our futures as fulfillment of our dreams. Meanwhile we do all in our power to acquire the means so that our imagined futures will reach fulfillment. What kind of stuff are our dreams, our ambitions, our plans made of? Usually they are desires for l dolce vita – to be the richest person in the world, to marry a celebrity, to be the highest official in the land for which one will exchange an already established popularity in showbiz, or theatre, or a beauty title; to live in the biggest mansion built on vast sprawling prime land in some famous heights. Then the plan which accompanies all this is to be in a position where one can grab every opportunity to accumulate millions. Indeed when one is in power, that would be easy. To make kurakot becomes the main agenda of those who unscrupulously wield the baton. Greed in its most monstrous form becomes a passion. And the dream becomes wild, foreseeing the day when one can rest in luxuriant bliss, in lustful eating, drinking and gorging oneself with a dangerous merriment.

Man proposes, plans his own life the way he wants it to be; but it is God who disposes. The Gospel of today issues a stern warning to those who ignore this: "You fool, the night your life will be demanded of you and the things you have prepared; to whom will they belong? Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasures for himself but is not rich in what matters to God" (Lk. 12:20-21).

God has His plan for each of His creatures even their free acts. All holy and loving, mightily sustaining and controlling all things, His plan embraces human freedom without destroying it. Thus He guides the course of the world and its history to the goal of each and everyone which He foreseen and which reaches fulfillment through the forces in the world that He has created and by His dispensations in saving history Look back at our history. How many kings, rulers, tyrants and dictators have tried to obliterate humanity, conquering by their mad power. They were the powers – the emperors of Rome, the dictators Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and others – they have tried their might on people, killing them, trying to send the Jewish race into oblivion by burning them. They would be gods. Where are they now? History is witness to our God who holds the destinies of people and nations, a God whose plans and purposes are never defeated.

It is only at the consummation that the creature really discovers the plan for the perfection of the world which is yet to be; which alone makes ultimate sense of the whole world and everything in it. Only by faith in the adorable, wise, holy, loving God and by unconditional surrender to His mysterious providence do we overcome that proud though anxious need of reassurance in which otherwise he feels himself or herself to be the only victim of conflicting earthly forces which can be reduced to no real unity.

Christ came to tell us that the fundamental reality of our lives, the ultimate ground of our existence, in which we live and move is our Father. Behind all the events of our lives, watching over us, counting the number of hairs on our head, knowing when the sparrow falls to the ground, is the loving concern of the Father. God is not a remote being far away from the world, who knows us from an infinite distance; but the very energy we live by, a divine field of force in which we operate, which is the same time supremely personal and, according to Jesus, fatherly. This means that the events of life, or meetings with people, the social situation we find ourselves in, are watched and planned and sent by God who permeates our history from within, so that we could call everything that happens to us the fringe of His garment which we either reach out to touch or hold back from. The realization of God is present within our lives, and therefore the responses we make to the challenge of life are personal responses to God. Trust Him.

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Luke 12:13-21.