294. Fourteenth Saturday of Ordinary Time
Meditations no. 276 (unofficial computer-aided translation)
We must trust in God alone.
Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Fatherās will. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.
Our approach to God must be open and trusting, a direct result of our divine filiation. As our Founder remarked: God our Lord plays with us. I am sure he overlooks our wretchedness, for he knows how weak we are, and he sees our love, our faith and our hope. All this can be summed up in one word: trust. But it is a trust which, because it is based on Christ, must be expressed as an earnest, heartfelt and compliant prayer to God, all the more if it is to be presented to the Blessed Trinity through the hands of our Mother, who is also Mother of God.
Because we trust in God we know that prayer is a powerful weapon, a sure remedy for all difficulties, and an abiding cause of joy at all times. In the words of St Clement of Rome: God is a merciful and beneficent Father; he has feelings of mercy ā¦ and lovingly showers his graces on all those who approach him in simplicity. Pride is the worst enemy of trust and is the source of inner turmoil and upset. As our Father wrote: If you feel for whatever reason that you cannot manage to go on, abandon yourself in God, telling him: Lord, I trust in you, I abandon myself in you, but do help me in my weakness!
And filled with confidence, repeat: See, Jesus, what a filthy rag I am. My life seems to me so miserable. I am not worthy to be a son of yours. Tell him all this - and tell him so over and over again.
It will not be long before you hear him say: Ne timeas! - do not be afraid; and also: Surge et ambula! - rise up and walk.
This gives rise to the paradox that the more humbly the soul struggles and is convinced that without this borrowed strength it is nothing, the further it goes and the higher the goals it achieves. Many years ago our Founder wrote: Alone we can do nothing worthwhile, because we have severed our relationship with God: sine me nihil potestis facere: apart from me you can do nothing. But united to our Lord we can do all things: omnia possum in eo qui me confortat: we can do all things in him who strengthens us, even though we make mistakes and commit errors, as long as we struggle not to.
Recourse to God in spite of our shortcomings.
Along the road that leads to personal sanctity we can at times get the impression that we are going backwards instead of forwards, that we are getting worse instead of better.
As long as there is interior struggle this pessimistic thought is only an illusion, a deception to be rejected as false.
Persevere and donāt worry. If you fight with tenacity you are making progress and are growing in sanctity.
What a great sense of security we get from realizing that God is Lord of the universe, that nothing can withstand his power, and that besides all that, he is also our father. There is only one thing that can upset our peace of mind: our pride. The proud soul trusts only in itself, in its own strength, in what it can see, understand, desire and do, and fails to experience inwardly that filial cry: Oh, my God: each day I am less sure of myself and more sure of You!
It is never difficult to have recourse to God if we are humble, and if we fight to be faithful and place all our trust in the Almighty. In the words of the prophet Isaiah: I will go before you and level the mountains, I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut asunder the bars of iron, I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by your name. Nothing should trouble that intimate divine union: neither sin, nor our shortcomings, nor our sad experience of being unable to conquer some defect in spite of all our efforts. Everything comes right eventually if we learn to turn confidently to God.
Sometimes our lack of humility makes us see insurmountable obstacles where they donāt exist, and this can cause us to become discouraged and careless. Our Father warned us about this situation, using the following illustration, referring to the giant-sized figures sometimes seen at carnivals. Fireworks go off; the brass band leads the parade of the giants; children scream; the figures seem absolutely enormous; the giant sways along in time to the music and gives the impression that, if it fell, it would crush people beneath it. It is all very impressive; but when the celebrations are over, it is clear that the giant was simply a wooden frame covered with cloth, being operated by a single person. The same thing frequently occurs when we look at our defects. As our Founder taught us: When you see that giant within you, donāt forget it is just make-believe. From time to time everyone has within them a minor conflict, which pride tries to magnify, in order to give it importance. Donāt pay the slightest attention to such trifles. Pride accumulates problems and blows them up out of all proportion. Out of worthless material it can make a giant: a few bits of wood, and a little unimportant man inside. Donāt be taken in. Itās not worth it.
What a great thing it is to be humble enough to recognize oneās own nothingness; and to see that, even in negative things, we shouldnāt take ourselves too seriously: it is not worthwhile getting upset about our defects. God is with us, and thatās all that matters.
Confidence in others, distrust of oneself.
Within your temple, we ponder your loving kindness, O God. As your name, so also your praise reaches to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is filled with justice. The Lord is our refuge, and from him all good things come. What a sense of security we feel! How it increases our desire to do good! The only thing we should fear is that we might abandon God through sin.
If we ever experience any trace of presumption, or feel moved to rebellion by the apparent futility of our struggle, that is the moment to say: Confige timore tuo carnes meas! - pierce my flesh with your fear: grant me, my God, a filial fear which will make me react.
Such filial fear does not run counter to trust in God, since, in the words of St Thomas Aquinas, we fear, not that we may lack what we hope to obtain by Godās help, but lest we withdraw ourselves from this help. Hence filial fear and hope cling together, and perfect each other.
Very often, our Father tells us, I find I have to say: pauper servus et humilis - a poor and humble servant. And I donāt do so out of false humility. When humility brings us to see ourselves as poor and useless servants before God, it confirms us in our commitment; we place all our reliance on our vocation. And since a vocation is a gift from God, placing our reliance on it means resting upon Christ who is the cornerstone.
Our vocation also leads us to trust in those brothers or sisters whom God has placed at our side to help us. Not to confide in them would be to turn away from God who, through them, holds out his hand to us to help us in our struggle. Woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up. So, since we want to be helped, let us resolve to be more docile in the weekly chat, loving this means of formation more, and wanting to do it more eagerly.
In Mary we have an example of trust in the Lord: a trust which becomes trust in others. She listens to the message of the Angel; she accepts the invitation to be Mother of the Messiah, and she goes cum festinatione- with haste - to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Mary shares her joy with her cousin; and both of them rejoice in the Lord.