directing each to its proper end, so the divine Will is the cause of
everything that exists. Just as it is impossible that anything should
escape God’s knowledge and directing hand, so is it impossible that
anything should exist or come into being without the direct intervention
or permission of His will. There is nothing in the world which God has not
made, and nothing takes place which is not according to His good-pleasure,
except the malice and guilt of sin. Even all the other evils of life, such
as sickness, suffering, disease, poverty, cold, hunger, thirst, and the
like, God actually and positively wills. And precisely because these
things proceed from His will, they cannot be bad. God is the author of all
good, and evil He cannot do. So good, indeed, is He that, if He were not
sufficiently omnipotent to draw good out of evil, He would never have
permitted any evil to exist. “God has judged it better,” says St.
Augustine, “to work good out of evil, than to allow no evil.”(98) We must
not argue in our foolishness and try to understand all the doings of God,
for His ways are not our ways, His thoughts not our thoughts.(99) It is
often beyond our power even to understand our fellow-creatures, and how
foolish it is to complain because we cannot comprehend the great Creator!
Enough for us, if we be sincere and right of heart, to know, as we do,
that God is good, that He loves us individually, and that His protecting
hand guides and governs all the events of our lives, even to the smallest
detail. These are truths which we must take hold of and lay close to our
hearts, else we shall go the way of error and issue in ultimate disaster.
And from these truths, so certain and unquestionable, it further follows
that everything existing in the world, so far as it affects us, everything
that falls to our lot, all that we encounter, all that we suffer, all that
we do, aside from sin, has been purposely arranged by Almighty God for our
greater spiritual good and eternal salvation. This must be so, since God
is the universal cause of all things, and since He sincerely loves us and
desires above all to save us. If it were otherwise, either He would not
have omnipotent control of everything, or He could not be said really to
desire our salvation. How sadly we misunderstand these great truths in our
daily lives, when we murmur and complain at the evils that afflict us! How
narrowly we conceive the all-powerful will of God, and the infinite abyss
of His goodness which would lead us to eternal delights! We would like to
escape all the evils of time, we love our lives, and we wish to save them
from final wreck; but when failing to trust to the will of God we forget
the words of Christ, that “he that loveth his life shall lose it; and he
that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal.”(100) We
want to save our souls, and we are, perhaps, much disturbed about doing
many and great things in the cause of God and of Heaven, unmindful the
while of the Master’s warning that, “not every one that saith to me, Lord,
Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doth the will of
my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of
heaven.”(101) It is doubtless our aim to draw ever nearer and nearer to
our Saviour, and to deepen our relationship with Him; but do we remember
that He said, “whosoever shall do the will of God, he is my brother, and
my sister, and mother?”(102)
“Yes,” you will say, “This is all true; I know it is so; my faith is at
fault. If I only had that beautiful faith and trust in God which many have
it would be easy for me, and I should be happy! Faith is a gift and
favored are they that possess it.” But, dear reader, can you not pray? Can
you not ask from God that heavenly gift which will move mountains and
translate them into the sea?(103) Can you not overcome your indolence and
your repugnance, and patiently and persistently implore from on high that
superior vision which pierces the clouds and sees in everything the hand
of God? Surely you can say, with the devout author of the Imitation of
Christ, “Behold, Oh beloved Father, I am in Thy hands, I bow myself under
the rod of Thy correction. Strike my back and my neck too, that my
crookedness may be conformed to Thy will.”(104) Here again, remember the
words of your Saviour, “The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the
violent bear it away.”(105)
Perhaps the greatest trial to our faith in divine Providence is in bearing
what we call the wrongs of life. That we should have any crosses to suffer
at all; that there should be death and sickness and disease; that there
should be poverty and misery, distress and worry, labor and sorrow; that
there should exist any of these things, is to our infirmity, if we forget
our sins and the sins of our race that have caused these evils, a trial
and a test of fidelity. But still more is it difficult, except to minds
that are deeply religious, to meet with the gentleness and serenity of
faith the positive injuries—the injustice, the scorn, the ridicule, the
pain and persecution which others, needy creatures like ourselves,
actually inflict upon us. It is easier, we say, to bear poverty than
insult; it is easier to suffer the inclemency of the elements than to
endure the unkindness of our brethren; it is easier to put up with the
pain and weariness of bodily sickness than to come under the lash of the
tongues of men. There is here, however, no room for hesitation and
question; the rule is the same for all the crosses that come to us. God
often permits us to be afflicted by the sins of others for our greater
spiritual profit. Since, therefore, all alike proceed from God, either by
positive act or divine permission, and since we know that He is supremely
good and loves us, having given every proof of His desire to save us, even
to the delivering up of His only Son,(106) we can never reasonably or
sincerely doubt that every evil and cross of life, with the sole exception
of our personal sins, has been arranged for our good. My God, do Thou
teach us the wisdom of the cross! “For this is a favor to Thy friend, that
for love of Thee he may suffer and be afflicted in the world, how often
soever and by whom soever Thou permittest such trials to befall him.”(107)
It is helpful that here also, in learning to discern the source and
meaning of our afflictions, we have ever before us the examples of the
holiest souls. We know that in all trials they steadfastly look beyond the
cross that presses them to the hand of Him who has placed it there. Like
the shepherd’s sheep, they are convinced of the power and goodness of
their Master, and nothing can shake their trust in Him. Without
distinction or question they accept all as coming from God by special act
or sovereign permission, to purify them, to detach them from the world and
creatures, to increase their nearness and likeness to Himself, to multiply
their merits for Heaven and bring them to everlasting crowns. They
discover the workings of Providence everywhere, in things that are
painful, as well as in things that are pleasant to nature. Thus behind
their pangs of body and mind, behind the whips and scorns of time, behind
the tongue that slanders and calumniates them, behind the oppressor’s
wrong, the injustice and tyranny of princes and rulers, behind all the
evils of life they see the hand of Him who directs and governs all. But
here we must not conclude that the Saints and holy persons have never
resisted evil and evil-doers, and that consequently we must not. This
would be a serious mistake, as Church history and hagiography plainly
prove. Who was ever more vigorous and fearless in opposing wrong and the
doers of wrong than St. Paul, St. Augustine, and St. Jerome? Who was ever
more persistent in his efforts to prevail against the evils of sin in
others than St. Monica, St. Teresa, St. Dominic, and St. Catharine of
Siena? After their example, then, we may and we must struggle against
evils of all kinds, whether physical or spiritual, whether from ourselves
or from others, in so far as it is not certain that it is the will of God
that we should submit to them. But when we have exerted ourselves
reasonably and lawfully to rid our lives of that which afflicts us, and
still it persists, there can be no further doubt that it is the will of
God that we should patiently and submissively accept our condition and our
cross. Since, however, we do not know how long it is the wish of
Providence that we should be burdened and afflicted, we may continue
patiently to use every legitimate means to be delivered, provided it be
done with humble resignation to the will of our heavenly Father.
The acceptance of injuries, therefore, on the part of holy souls is not a
weak yielding to inevitable circumstances, nor a willing consent to the
wrongs of others. Like St. Paul, they know whom they have believed,(108)
and they are certain that, in due time, divine justice will bring all
evil-doers to an evil end and will deliver the just from their troubles.
And further, when the vengeance of the persecutor is turned upon them, and
they are hunted down without reason by their kind, even by the members of
their own household, they remember the words of their Shepherd, “The
disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. It is
enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his
lord. If they have called the good man of the house Beelzebub, how much
more them of his household!”(109)
And again, when the servants of God behold the wicked prospering and the
just oppressed; when they see the ambitious, the covetous, the
unscrupulous preferred and honored, and they themselves plotted against
and rejected, their heart is not disturbed, because they know first of all
that “to them that love God, all things work together unto good,”(110) and
secondly, they are persuaded that the efforts of sinners must finally
fail. “For the hope of the wicked is as dust, which is blown away with the
wind, and as a thin froth which is dispersed by the storm: and as a smoke
that is scattered abroad by the wind: and as the remembrance of a guest of
one day that passeth by.”(111) In a word, then, those who are really the
friends of God have faith and confidence in their heavenly Master; and all
the perils of earth, and all the powers of darkness cannot avail to daunt
them or turn them aside from their purpose.
This steadfastness of religious trust we, in our turn, must strive to
acquire. It is the only way to peace and victory. If we would ever rise
above the evils of our lives we must learn to look to God for every thing.
And this looking to God must be, not only as to our bountiful benefactor,
but as to a kind master who knows how best to discipline his servants and
preserve them from irreparable harm.
There is a substantially correct translation of the final verse of the
Shepherd Psalm, which may be rendered as follows: “And Thy goodness and
kindness pursue me all the days of my life, _that I may dwell_ in the
house of the Lord forever.” It is the special wording of the second clause
of the stanza that expresses the real purpose of divine Providence in
regard to the elect. Everything in life has been ordained and arranged for
their eternal salvation, and for the increase of their heavenly rewards.
“Therefore,” wrote St. Paul to Timothy, “I endure all things for the sake
of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation, which is in Christ
Jesus, with heavenly glory.”(112) It is this firm conviction that infinite
love is at the bottom of all the workings of Providence, doing everything
for the sake of the elect, that consoles and steadies the souls of the
just throughout all the trials and crosses of life. In the thick of the
battle they never lose sight of the faithful Shepherd that leads them, and
they ever behold by faith the unspeakable delights He has prepared for
them that love Him.
What joys are there in our faith and hope! If by the mercy and goodness of
God we succeed in saving our souls, how cheap will seem the price we shall
have paid for Heaven, and how benign and ineffably loving will appear the
Providence of God which is leading us there! At times now in our fervor we
can faintly and feebly imagine what it will mean to throw off forever this
veil of faith and see distinctly and continually the Shepherd of our
souls. But our liveliest conceptions here are infinitely inferior to the
vision to come. “To see God face to face, as He is; to gaze undazzled on
the Three Divine Persons, cognizable and distinct in the burning fires of
their inaccessible splendors; to behold that long-coveted sight, the
endless Generation of the All-holy Son, and our hearts to hold the joy,
and not die; to watch with spirits all out-stretched in adoration the
ever-radiant and ineffably beautiful Procession of the Holy Ghost from the
Father and the Son, and to participate ourselves in that jubilee of
jubilees, and drink in with greedy minds the wonders of that Procession,
and the marvelous distinctness of its beauty from the Generation of the
Son; to feel ourselves with ecstatic awe, and yet with seraphic intimacy,
overshadowed by the Person of the Unbegotten Father, the Father to whom
and of whom we have said so much on earth, the Fountain of Godhead, who is
truly our Father, while He is also the Father of the Eternal Son; to
explore, with exulting license and with unutterably glad fear, attribute
after attribute, oceans opening into oceans of divinest beauty; to lie
astonished in unspeakable contentment before the vision of God’s
surpassing Unity, so long the joyous mystery of our predilection, while
the Vision through all eternity seems to grow more fresh and bright and
new: O my poor soul! what canst thou know of this, or of these beautiful
necessities, of thy exceeding love, which shall only satisfy itself in
endless alternations, now of silence and now of song?”(113)
If regret were possible for the blessed hereafter, they would never cease
to mourn over the loss of their opportunities on earth to increase their
eternal beatitude. It is only when the veil shall have been removed that
we shall fully realize how the goodness and mercy of God have always
pursued us in this life, that we might be saved and enjoy the rewards of
His house forever. May God give us all that child-like trust in our
heavenly Master which the sheep display toward their shepherd; may He
grant us that vivid constant faith of the Saints which will enable us to
see in every event of life, in adversity as well as in prosperity, in our
pains as well as in our joys, the designs of a loving Father who is ever
wishing and trying to lead His children to His home of eternal delights.
FOOTNOTES
1 Isa. xl. 11.
2 Jer. xxiii. 4, 5.
3 Ezech. xxxiv. 11, 12, 23.
4 Phil. ii. 6, 7.
5 Jno. x. 30, 38; xii. 45.
6 Luke xii. 49.
7 Gen. iii. 19.
8 Lam. i. 12.
9 Ps. cxliv. 9.
10 Isa. liii. 4.
11 Rom. viii. 17.
12 2 Cor. iv. 17.
13 Matt. v. 48.
14 Jno. xv. 5.
15 Luke xxiii. 34.
16 Prov. viii. 31.
17 Jno. xv. 15.
18 Ps. viii. 5.
19 Prov. xxiii. 26.
20 Matt. xi. 28.
21 Jno. vi. 52, 55.
22 Jno. xvi. 2.
23 Ezech. xviii. 23; xxxiii. 11; 2 Pet. iii. 9.
24 Ps. 102. 14.
25 Luke xv. 4, 7.
26 Luke i. 31.
27 Matt. xvi. 18.
28 Luke x. 17.
29 Matt. xviii. 17.
30 Matt. xxiv. 35.
31 Matt. xxiv. 24.
32 2 Cor. xi. 26.
33 2 Cor. xi. 13.
34 Matt. xxviii. 20.
35 Ps. cxiii. 13, 14.
36 Jude 10.
37 Matt. x. 17, 22-26.
38 Mich. vii. 6; Matt. x. 36.
39 Bk. i. 11. 5.
40 Matt. xvi. 24.
41 Ps. xvii. 4, 5.
42 Luke xii. 34.
43 1 Jno. iv. 16, 18.
44 Ps. xxvi. 1, 2.
45 Matt. x. 28.
46 Wis. iii. 3.
47 Ps. xxxiii. 20.
48 Ps. xiii. 3.
49 Jno. x. 10.
50 2 Tim. ii. 5.
51 Luke ix. 23.
52 Jno. xii. 34.
53 Job vii. 1; Job xiv. 2.
54 Isa. xl. 6, 7.
55 Heb. xi. 10.
56 Wis. v. 6-9.
57 Rom. viii. 16, 17.
58 1 Peter iv. 13.
59 Wis. iii. 4, 6.
60 Luke xiv.
61 1 Cor. i. 25.
62 Luke xiv. 26.
63 Philip iii. 7, 8.
64 Confess. ix. 1.
65 Ps. xxxiii. 9; lxxxii. 2.
66 Job xiii. 15.
67 Ps. xc. 11.
68 Philip iv. 7.
69 Philip iv. 13.
70 Rom. viii. 33-39.
71 Rom. ix. 16.
72 Eccl. ix. 1, 2.
73 Philip, ii. 12.
74 1 Cor. ix. 27.
75 Jno. xvii. 11-15.
76 Ps. xvi. 5.
77 Isa. xlii. 3.
78 Ps. cii. 13, 14.
79 Apoc. xxi., iv.
80 Philip i. 20, 21.
81 2 Cor. vi. 4-11.
82 Matt. vii. 16-19.
83 Matt. vi. 30.
84 Luke xxiv. 25.
85 Matt. xvii. 16.
86 Ps. xxix. 7.
87 Jonas iv.
88 In Ps. xxx. Exp. 2.
89 Ps. cxlv. 2, 3.
90 Jno. xiv. 27.
91 Bk. iii.; ch. lix. 3.
92 Matt. xxv. 24-31.
93 Matt. xi. 28.
94 Jno. iv. 13, 14.
95 Bk. iii., ch. 1, 4.
96 De Fide orthod. ii. 29.
97 Wis. vi. 8.
98 Ench. tom. iii., ch. 27 and ii.
99 Isa. lv. 8; Rom. xi. 33.
100 Jno. xii. 25.
101 Matt. vii. 21.
102 Mk. iii. 35.
103 Mk. xi. 23.
104 Bk. III., ch. l. 6.
105 Matt. xi. 12.
106 Rom. viii. 32.
107 Imitation, Bk. III., ch. l. 4.
108 2 Tim. i. 12.
109 Matt. x. 24, 25.
110 Rom. viii. 28.
111 Wis. v. 15.
112 2 Tim. ii. 10.
113 Faber, Creator and Creature, Bk. II., ch. v.