A TIME FOR HOPE

The first reading at mass on Monday, Nov. 6 contains a beautiful exclamation of wonder  on the part of St. Paul: 

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God=

How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways!

For who has known the mind of the Lord

or who has been his counselor?

Or who has given him anything

that he may be repaid?

For from him and through him and for him are all things.

To God be glory forever. Amen (Romans 11:33-36).

Paul has just spent the last three chapters (9-11) agonizing over the question: "What about the Jewish people? Has God abandoned His Chosen People?" In trying to answer the question he goes through some complex rabbinic reasoning (the lectionary skips almost all of these verses) and comes to the conclusion that God has not abandoned his People, but will save them in the end grafting the onto the Vine which is Christ and the New People of God, that is, the Church.

In this post I'm not interested in following his reasoning or looking at his conclusion, but rather at the verses cited above, in which he finally throws up his hands in frustration at not being able to find a clear answer to the question. He has found that God's ways were far too mysterious for him to understand.

;

Recently, two different friends of mine, as they were each talking about their difficult, painful and discouraging situations, said the same thing" "I don't understand!" Well, this passage from St. Paul can assure them that they are in good company: Paul could not understand God's ways either. I(n fact, he would write in his second letter to the Corinthians, "We walk by faith and not by sight" (2 Cor. 5:7).

God has given each of us and intellect so that we might know and understand our world, and so Aristotle writes "All humans desire to know." So I can't really blame my friends for complaining "I don't know!" when they are in a painful situation that "makes no sense" in terms of God's loving plan for them.

The virtue of Hope is a gift from the Lord that enables you and me to hold fast to our belief in a good and loving God despite our experiences of suffering and evil in our own lives and in the lives of people in war zones. 

Certainly in our present times we can each pray for an increase in the virtue of Hope, so that we can look at the evils we see in the daily headlines or in our own hearts, and still continue to take up our cross every day and follow Christ.