{"id":1808,"date":"2022-01-03T17:58:35","date_gmt":"2022-01-03T17:58:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ourcharism.org\/?p=1808"},"modified":"2022-01-29T17:58:55","modified_gmt":"2022-01-29T17:58:55","slug":"it-is-your-providence-o-father-that-steers-our-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourcharism.org\/index.php\/2022\/01\/03\/it-is-your-providence-o-father-that-steers-our-course\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cIt is your providence, O Father, that steers our course\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt is your providence, O Father, that steers our course\u201d<\/em><\/strong>
\nWisdom 14:3<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After having increased the number of seminarians from 42 to 147 in eight years; and of minor seminarians from 200 to 500 in four seminaries; after providing ongoing formation to priests in six dioceses of the Metropolitan Church of Hue; after developing and reinforcing the formation of youth and laity in the diocese of Nhatrang (Vietnam), the then bishop of that diocese, Francis Xavier van Thuan, was appointed by Pope Saint Paul VI as coadjutor archbishop of Saigon. However, nine months after arriving there he was arrested by the communists and sent to a \u201cre-education camp\u201d \u2013a euphemism for prison\u2013 where he remained from 1975 to 1988, suffering the \u201cmost grueling captivity.\u201d[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Of those 13 years, 9 were spent in solitary confinement, with only two guards, something he himself describes as \u201cmental torture, in absolute emptiness, without work, walking around the cell from morning until half past nine at night so as not to be destroyed by arthrosis, on the edge of madness.\u201d[2]<\/sup><\/a> He was 48 years old at the time.<\/p>\n

Certainly, his was an extreme case; nevertheless, it is common to many men and women of good will to suffer by no fault of their own from moral evils. In fact, it could happen to any of us, and indeed does happen to us when the things for which we fight so hard are destroyed overnight. Bishop van Thuan was tempted, and more than tempted, he was tormented by the fact that at 48 years of age, having worked eight years as a bishop, having acquired much pastoral experience, etc., he now found himself isolated, inactive, and separated from his people.<\/p>\n

How many times in the course of our history \u2013at the level of the Institute, but also on a personal level\u2013 have we had to leave a program or a project unfinished that had been well planned and well organized. How many times have activities that we started with great enthusiasm been hindered; apostolates or projects of great importance been reduced to minor activities. How many times, while seeking to do good, we have been slandered, persecuted, threatened… Despite this, we too, like Bishop van Thuan, must learn to \u201cchoose God and not the works of God,\u201d [3]<\/sup><\/a> the God who arranges everything for our greater good.<\/p>\n

Today God grants us to begin a new year. It may seem strange to be speaking of such an experience, when the whole world is planning for the new year with optimism. Yet it is all too often that these plans are made without God.<\/p>\n

On our part, it is not that we do not have projects, it is not that we do not have purposes to achieve, nor old challenges to continue facing, but it is no lesser truth that divine providence has for us merciful designs that do not always coincide with our plans. This does not mean that God\u2019s providential intervention must always be adverse, but rather, on the contrary, that it is always positive and seeks to smooth the way for us, even when the situations it presents do not please us and seem to us bad and very unfavorable. For this reason, it has seemed to us that it could be very healthy for our souls to take into account in \u2018our planning\u2019 that coordinated master, which in reality is the central axis on which depend the different variables that constitute the interweaving of the multiple events of our daily life. So, far from beginning the year with a pessimistic view of reality, we would like to offer a brief reflection on the special and merciful divine providence that manifests itself even<\/em> when bad things happen to the good people and good things happen to bad people, since, as St. John of the Cross says, \u201cHis Majesty has so arranged matters, it is what most suits everyone<\/strong>.\u201d[4]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 The \u201cHidden Treasures\u201d of Divine Providence<\/strong><\/h4>\n

It happens to quite a few Christians that even when they profess their faith in divine providence and strive with all their might to give the best of themselves to do something good, for themselves or for others, they see their efforts scorned and the work of their hands vanish before their eyes. Thus, many are faced with the reality, for example, that their business has gone to ruin; that even though they have married and given everything, their family has ended up splitting up; that the mission that has cost them so many sacrifices has closed or an illness has taken them away from the apostolate; or simply, those from whom they expected help have betrayed them. Hence, the reality of evil and suffering present in so many forms in human life constitutes for many \u2013even \u00a0religious\u2013 the main difficulty in accepting the truth of divine providence (accepting<\/em> understood in the sense of interiorly assimilating and not simply intellectually assenting to a truth).<\/p>\n

Echoing this reality, St. John Paul II stated in one of his audiences: \u201cIn some cases, this difficulty takes on a radical form, when God is even accused<\/em> of the evil and suffering present in the world, even to the point of rejecting the very truth of God and of his existence (that is, even atheism). In a less radical and yet disturbing way, this difficulty is expressed in the many critical questions<\/em> that man poses to God. Doubt, questioning and even protest are born of the difficulty of reconciling<\/em> the truth of divine providence, of God\u2019s paternal solicitude for the created world, and the reality of evil and suffering experienced in various forms by mankind.\u201d[5]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

On the other hand, every year we do the Spiritual Exercises and every year, therefore, we meditate of the Principle and Foundation: \u201cMan is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul. And the other things on the face of the earth are created for man and that they may help him in prosecuting the end for which he is created<\/em>. From this it follows that man is to use them as much as they help him toward his end, and ought to rid himself of them so far as they hinder him from it. For this it is necessary to make ourselves indifferent<\/strong> to all created things in all that is allowed to the choice of our free will and is not prohibited to it; so that, on our part, we want not health rather than sickness, riches rather than poverty, honor rather than dishonor, long rather than short life, and so in all the rest; desiring and choosing only what is most conducive for us to the end for which we are created.\u201d[6]<\/sup><\/a> St. Ignatius calls it the Principle and Foundation<\/em> of his Spiritual Exercises, but it is also the most fundamental truth of human existence and divine providence. This is how St. John Paul II expressed it when he said: \u201cFaith in divine providence<\/strong> is intimately linked to the basic concept of human existence, that is, to the meaning of man\u2019s life<\/strong>. Man can face his existence in an essentially different way when he is certain that he is not under the dominion of a blind destiny (fatum<\/em>), but that he depends on Someone who is his Creator and Father. For this reason, the faith in divine providence inscribed in the first words of the Apostolic Creed: \u2018I believe in God the Father almighty,\u2019 frees<\/em> human existence from the various forms of fatalistic thinking<\/em>.\u201d[7]<\/sup><\/a> However, it sometimes happens that under pressure or difficult circumstances we forget this or accept these words as mere abstract principles of the spiritual life without making them an integral part of our daily life. In other words, we do not assume them in a vital way. That is why in this first point we would like to bring up what the Magisterium of the Church and its illustrious Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, teach about this fundamental matter.<\/p>\n

First of all, we all know that the truth of divine providence is present in the whole of Revelation. Indeed, we can say that it \u201cpermeates all of Revelation<\/em>.\u201d[8]<\/sup><\/a> Likewise, it is found in the ordinary Magisterium of the Church from the beginning as a fundamental truth of the faith, although only during the First Vatican Council it was declared in the solemn Dogmatic Constitution De fide catholica<\/em>, concerning the truth about creation. Here are the words of Vatican I: \u201cGod preserves all that He has created and directs it with His providence which \u2018Indeed, she spans the world from end to end mightily and governs all things well.\u2019[9]<\/sup><\/a> \u2018Everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him\u2019[10]<\/sup><\/a>, even things that happen by the free initiative of his creatures.\u201d Also following in the footsteps of the constant tradition of the Church\u2019s teaching the texts of the Second Vatican Council deduce that God is the one Who \u201chas fatherly concern for everyone\u201d[11]<\/sup><\/a>, and in particular \u201cthe human race\u201d[12]<\/sup><\/a>. The Manifestation of this solicitude is also the \u201cthe divine law \u2013eternal , objective and universal\u2013whereby God orders, directs and governs the entire universe and all the ways of the human community by a plan conceived in wisdom and love.\u201d[13]<\/sup><\/a> \u201cFor man would not exist were he not created by Gods love and constantly preserved by it; and he cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and devotes himself to His Creator<\/em>.\u201d[14]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

In the Summa Theologica<\/em>, I, q. 22 the Angelic Doctor deals with the providence of God. We will not transcribe everything that is explained there \u2013although we strongly recommend reading
\nit[15]<\/sup><\/a>\u2013, but we will simply present the basic concepts as a guideline to approach this subject.<\/p>\n