Jacob's Well

Famine strikes deep the land, rending dry
Hearts aching with thirst.  No rain falls.
Wells bear muddy water rich with slime.

A few souls struggle up the hill
Outside the city to Jacob's well.
Bucket after bucket is lifted and gone.

Voices clamor for more, but no more
Lies within the emptied well, and still
No rain falls.  Dry, useless, cistern waits,

Cut off from the deep springs by stone
Well-laid long time hence, a tribute
To the cunning foe that placed it there.

The strong one cannot roll away the stone
Blocking the spring of Father's gift
Trapped in mother earth, life tight-sealed.

Seekers drift away, foiled, deluded
By hopes laid in distant mirage. One
Remains, knees bent, head bowed, lost.

If the Father's spring flows not again,
Bursts not through earth and stone to quench
Thirst, give life, then well becomes a tomb.

What Is God's Will?

“If God would just tell me what His will was, I would do it.”

Would you, though?

That question of itself could make an entire meditation.  However, look again at this phrase in another form:

“What does God want me to do?”

If I had the proverbial penny for every time this phrase had been asked or spoken, I would be rich indeed.  Even the number of times I have heard it in my own life would make a weighty pile (and that of course includes its origin in my own mind or mouth).

Take a third look at it:

“I don't understand why God won't just tell me what He wants me to do. I keep asking Him and asking Him.”

As with most aspects of our lives, there are two movements at work here.  The first is good: we turn toward God and ask Him what He wants, so there is a stirring of our hearts for God and a desire to be open to His will.

The second, however, often undermines the first.  Because we are so focused upon asking God what He wants of us, we fail to recognize what He is actually telling us through what is happening to us in each moment and what He is speaking through the silence in our hearts. Our failure originates from a misconception about what God's will means.  We think of it as something we do.  In becoming focused on God's will as something we do, we are looking for, in modern business parlance, “action items.”  Now that sort of perspective lies not too far off from the approach of Pelagianism which places salvation within the reach of our own actions instead of as our acceptance of unmerited grace given freely by our loving God.

Thus, like every other temptation it focuses us on ourselves instead of on God.  We become fixated on wanting to do the exact right thing and fearing that if we fail we will ruin God's plan for our lives.

Do you really think you have the power to ruin the plans of the OMNIPOTENT GOD?

I somehow doubt it.

Why then do we look outward?  Why do we seek the will of God in anything other than what He is giving us in the present moment?

In some sense it is because we are not happy in the moment.  We feel unable to bear whatever suffering happens to be our lot, either sickness of ourselves or loved ones, the loss of a job or work that makes us miserable, our plans falling apart, friends failing or betraying us, the death of someone we hold dear, a loved one following the wrong path....  The list could go on and on.

In all these things, we experience inner conflict because we know that things are not as they should be—as they were meant to be.  In short, because it is not yet heaven.

Consequently, we flee from these struggles, seeking solutions everywhere but in the depths of our hearts where God resides—where heaven begins to sprout like the mustard tree.  Saint Augustine put it so well in his much-quoted words: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”

The path of abandoning oneself to God's Providence offers the pathway to that rest.

Now often when people begin to think of abandoning themselves to God and accepting His will in every moment, they understand a sort of resignation or giving up on doing anything.  There enter cynicism.

Perhaps the best way to look at it is to understand our own will as a reflection of God's will since we were after all created in His image and likeness.  When we speak of His will, we can refer to His passive will and to His active will.  The latter means what He directly wills, as for example His creation of the world or the working of miracles.  The former encompasses all that He allows to happen without directly willing it, including any of the evils in the world, and which He permits in order to bring about a greater good, as He did with the Crucifixion.

In our own lives it is much the same.  We actively will certain things, seeking to do what is good and to grow in virtue.  That is easy enough to understand.

What about our passive will, however?

Certainly it is harder to understand—and harder to live—but ultimately it is where we become most united with God, for HE IS.  Remember He called Himself I-AM-WHO-AM, for He is being itself, existence itself.  Thus accepting what is means accepting His presence in each moment.

There is a piece of folk wisdom that says that one first has to admit to having a problem in order to begin to be able to change it.  Similarly, when we accept our current situation as it is things often do begin to change.  Even if the external situation remains the same, our hearts become transformed within us, our minds become converted.

Therefore, let us accept whatever is in our lives not in order to become bitter and resigned and stoic about it, but because we thereby choose to believe that our Beloved Father will bring about a greater good through it, that Christ is present with us through it, and that the Holy Spirit works our salvation through it.  Let us embrace everything that happens to us then in order to become one with the Holy Trinity at work in that moment.

You Are in the Hands of God

“Do not become upset when difficulty comes your way.  Laugh in its face and know that you are in the hands of God.”

These words come from a wise and holy man often quoted in the letters of one of my favorite spiritual writers, Jean-Pierre de Caussade, S.J.  That man is Saint Francis de Sales whose feastday we celebrate today and who is known as the patron saint of writers.

Although I do not know whether Saint Francis de Sales ever used the exact phrase "abandonment to Divine Providence" his writings are full of that reality, as the above quotation illustrates.  For in it he essentially proclaims the most radical surrender to God.  Not only does he prescribe accepting difficulties or learning to endure them, but he goes much farther when he says to laugh in the face of difficulty.

Who can laugh in the face of poverty?  Who even smiles at the death of a loved one?  Who could find joy in utter destruction in the wake of some natural disaster?

We are no better when it comes to the small things.  We complain constantly about the most ridiculous of trifles.  We become despondent when things do not go as we expect and begin to try to figure out what we have done wrong that might have led to such unfortunate results.

For we still think we are in control.

No matter how much we believe that God exists and that He is all-powerful, we still hesitate to believe in the insignificance of our power.  We still cling madly to the Ring of Power despite the fact that another controls our will through it.

Saint Francis de Sales knew better:

"Do not look forward to what may happen tomorrow; the same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow and every day.  Either He will shield you from suffering, or He will give you unfailing strength to bear it.  Be at peace, then, put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations, and say continually: The Lord is my strength and shield; my heart has trusted in Him and I am helped.  He is not only with me, but in me and I in Him.”

If we believe in the incredible power of God, in His infinite wisdom, and in His guidance of our lives, we need fear nothing.  We need not worry.  We can take joy in all the happenings in our lives and around us, knowing that God is using all for our greater good so long as we surrender our lives to Him.

We shall fall no doubt.  We cannot believe perfectly, frail human creatures that we are.

Yet Saint Francis de Sales had wise words on that reality also:

“God takes pleasure to see you take your little steps; and like a good father who holds His child by the hand, He will accommodate His steps to yours and will be content to go no faster than you.  Why do you worry?”

In all things, even in our surrender to Him, we can be content to continue making the effort.  We will fall, but we will get up.  Sometimes we will see the glory of all the little strands about us weaving together into a strong rope to lift us up into the brilliant light of the heavens.  Sometimes we will struggle along through the darkness, not knowing where we step.

“During the night we must wait for the light.” 

For at the opportune moment, He will intervene with a bright new dawn and in that morning we shall sing as we were created to sing.

Coinciding of Celebrations

Today's coinciding of the secular celebration of Fathers' Day and the solemnity of Corpus Christi leads me to reflect upon the beautiful gift of spiritual fatherhood—of the priesthood in particular.  I am so grateful for all the wonderful priests who have touched by life.

These are the men who have reflected not only the light of Christ, but the image of the Father.  They have helped me to understand in a deeper way how much our Father in heaven loves us, how much He provides for us in giving us priests to stand before us with the very human love we desire, to meet us face to face as He cannot do until we finish our time of purification and come before Him at last.

Our own fathers reflect that same image of the Father.  For they too are priests in a sense—by their baptismal priesthood—and carry out their vocation of fatherhood in the domestic church of the family.

I think today also of those who have never had an example of a good father and whose ideas of God the Father have therefore been skewed.  I pray that they will find the Father they seek.

May our Lord bless abundantly all those who reflect His image of fatherhood!  I carry in my heart today in a special way all the priests who have touched my life, particularly as I go to approach the altar and to receive the Body and Blood of Christ on this blessed solemnity.  I pray that all priests may remain faithful to the voice of the Father within them that He may continue to speak through them and to transform them ever more into His face upon this earth.

Coincidence

It never ceases to amaze me how coincidences happen constantly, demonstrating the Providence of our great Father in heaven.  It has become my practice to treat spiritual reading as an opportunity for that encounter, so I open to a random place in a spiritual book and read, taking from those pages whatever my Lord wishes to speak to my heart.  Today the page to which I opened in Lui et Moi, the book I mentioned before of our Lord's words to Gabrielle Bossis, happened to have today's date and also to have taken place in a year when that date fell within Passion week:

April 11th

Have faith.  Everything becomes simple then.  It will be simple to love Me, simple to serve Me, simple to be happy to suffer for Me.  Believing is almost the same as seeing.  To see Me!...  What progress, what riches to exploit, when you speak to Me, when you tell Me that you love Me.

The proof of your love for God is the affectionate care you take of your neighbor.  Be sure that you see Me in him, that you charm Me when you charm him.  This will keep you humble beside him.  Always be the smallest.  Think of the size of the Host.  Begin today to do your best to speak to Me when you speak to your neighbor.  I expect this of you this afternoon when you get together with your friends.  You would not want to refuse Me anything this week of My passion, would you?

May these words inspire your own journey this week as we enter into the commemoration of our Lord's passion and death!  I pray that all of us may have the humility to be small, to accept our weaknesses, and thereby to open the way for our Lord who is so great to descend into our nothingness and transform us by His presence.

I will leave you again with that last haunting question.  Think of it as our Lord speaking so gently and tenderly to your heart, for He longs more desperately for your love than you long for anything:

You would not want to refuse Me anything this week of My passion, would you?