God is constantly “acting on
our behalf, out of love for us;” drawing us into our truest identity. And
since God preserves
the universe in
being, we believe that he acts in and with every creature in each and
all its activities. This is not to say we are stuck in
some plan, some occult predestination, but that God is always, always calling,
beckoning us, drawing us to himself, longing to fill us with himself, drawing us into the Trinity. We name this Divine Providence.*
We are all invited to look back and
notice the finger of God, to reflect on our own lives with a kind of road-back-to
Jerusalem-from-Emmaus insight- “It was the Lord all the time, though I did not
recognize him. It was you Lord, calling, using anything at all to bring me to
you, to my truth, to the secret for which I was made.” It was, it is God’s
finger in my life day in day out.
In the end each of us can say with
Isaiah, “The Lord called me from my mother’s womb; he pronounced my very name…”
Divine Providence has been at work in our individual stories, our histories,
through all the blessings and reversals. These graces must be named and
celebrated as God’s work in us, through us, for us.
* See The Catholic Encyclopedia. Photograph by Brother Brian.
