Divine Providence

Divine providence consists of the dispositions by which God guides all his creatures with wisdom and love to their ultimate end. He does not withhold anything necessary for anyone who would like to come to Him.

Throughout the history of our faith, and particularly in the clear invitation of Jesus in the gospels, God has offered Himself to all without distinction. He sent His son Jesus to die for all of us so we can be recipient of this inexhaustible grace, the grace that gives us the strength to love Him back. For He created us out of love and through this same love He calls us.

Beyond the amazing beauty of this thought, without the freedom to reciprocate the love that God has for us, that by choosing to love Him back, we will never be able to experience how it is to be free. For if love is not given back free, it is not love at all.

Forced love can never be true love. If we can't say no to the urges of our body, that is not truly being free. It only means that we are in bondage and enslaved in the desires of our human flesh and that is not the freedom God intended for us to have.

God has invited all of us to His great banquet feast, but we must accept and embrace that invitation and do what it takes to get to the table. For reasons unknown to us, some seem to be satisfied with or only able to see the crumbs under the table rather than the great and endless delights of the feast above. There are many reasons for this but only God knows the specific barriers that exist in any man’s heart.

The other comforting element is that God is patient. Time and flesh are our enemy when it comes to our redemption but God is always ready and willing to give us all He has if we will turn to Him.

Our own standard claims that every good thing that happens in our lives - new car, new job, bigger house, etc are God's blessings, and yet we heard Jesus speak some few weeks back in the Liturgy when He echoed the sermon on the mount and named those He does consider "blessed!" These are those who are oppressed, nothing to eat, those who don’t have jobs and sick and helpless but whose faith remain steadfast. In Jesus' parable of the vineyard worker, we will see that God's justice and mercy work totally different than our own standard of justice and mercy. These are just some of the many circumstances He communicates to us that His economy of salvation doesn't work in the way our culture and time work.

Finally, there is, in the mystery of God’s provision, a way that we can participate and even somehow increase the grace that an individual can receive from God. God has chosen to work through the prayers of others to bring His grace to His people. So, what can we do? Pray, pray, pray, and pray some more…. and be holy.  And the greatest testament to the love of God is how love has changed those who encounter him.

Intrinsic Evil

The reason we follow certain moral teachings is not because this is what the Church says, but rather we follow them and the Church teaches them because they are true.

Morality is universal – what is good for one person to do is good for all people, and what is bad for one person to do is bad for all people. It does not matter who the person is or what the situation is.

Many people have a faulty and populist understanding of what good and evil are. Good is defined as “that which is pleasant” or “that which saves lives”. However, the correct definition of good is “acting in accord with the nature of a thing” or “that which perfects or completes a thing’s being”.

For a human to be morally good is to act in accord with the nature of humanity. We are made in the image and likeness of God and should therefore act as He would have us act. We are made to love and serve God, and to be morally good is to act in accordance with that. Evil is defined as the absence or lacking of a good – thus, a moral evil is to act against the wishes of God.

Intrinsic evil refers to actions that are morally evil in such a way that is essentially opposed to the will of God or proper human fulfillment. The key consideration here is that intrinsically evil actions are judged to be so solely by their object, independently of the intention that inspires them or the circumstances that surround them. “Intrinsic” has nothing to do with how heinous the act is although all heinous acts are intrinsically evil, but rather that the act is wrong no matter what its circumstances.

Good in Every Evil

Today let us remember the victims of calamities, accidents, deaths through abortions and euthanasia. Let us remember the oppressed by those who have power and wealth, especially those who don’t have the resources and the strength to fight and protect their selves. And every time we look around and see the chaos of this world, we ask – where is God in all these? But for the one who have faith sees that every time God allows evil to happen or even prosper, He is always able to bring out something good out of it - a goodness that surpasses that very same evil.

When we come to think about the fate of the victims of these circumstances in the standards of the world, let us remember that while they may have suffered evil in this world - there is a God that loves them and they have been rewarded an eternal bliss which God has prepared for them. And so when He said, “the last will be first and the first will be last”(Mt. 20:16) we will come to fully understand what this really means when in our turn enter the eternal bliss and meet the poor and the oppressed of our world and see how more blessed are they than us.

Abba Father, help us to remember that you loved us first and in this same love we put our trust and faith in you. May our will conform to yours, may your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

We pray this in the name of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.