Below is an excerpt from the wonderful 100-page by Fr. Jacques Philippe entitled “Searching for and Maintaining Peace.” Every page of the book is good and the result is highlighting or underlining the whole manuscript!
Try reading this text twice and there’s a question below that is worth meditating on.
Fr. Philippe writes: “The first obstacle is that, as long as we have not experienced concretely the fidelity of Divine Providence to provide for our essential needs, we have difficulty believing in it and we abandon it. We have hard heads, the words of Jesus do not suffice for us, we want to see at least a little in order to believe! Well, we do not see it operating around us in a clear manner. How, then, are we to experience it? It is important to know one thing: We cannot experience this support from God unless we leave Him the necessary space in which He can express Himself. I would like to make a comparison. As long as a person who must jump with a parachute does not jump out into the void, he cannot feel that the cords of the parachute will support him, because the parachute has not yet had the chance to open. One must first jump and it is only later that one feels carried. And so it is in spiritual life: “God gives in the measure that we expect of Him,” says Saint John of the Cross. And Saint Francis de Sales says: “The measure of Divine Providence acting on us is the degree of confidence that we have in it.” This is where the problem lies. Many do not believe in Providence because they’ve never experienced it, but they’ve never experienced it because they’ve never jumped into the void and taken the leap of faith. They never give it the possibility to intervene. They calculate everything, anticipate everything, they seek to resolve everything by counting on themselves, instead of counting on God. The founders of religious orders proceed with the audacity of this spirit of faith. They buy houses without having a penny, they receive the poor although they have nothing with which to feed them. Then, God performs miracles for them. The checks arrive and the granaries are filled. But, too often, generations later, everything is planned, and calculated.”
My own initial response was “of course! I have so much confidence in God.” As I meditated on it, I thought about all the worrying, thinking, and strategizing that I’ve conducted in my head regarding bringing some family members back to the Holy Catholic Church, I gave myself a failing grade in the trust in God department. I’m not bringing anyone back to the Faith – God will.
So I am going to humbly try to live this passage by continuing to pray for them, cease the meddling, and abandon it to God. It’s too important a petition to not leave Him the necessary space.
Having read the above words of Fr. Philippe twice, contemplate if you are leaving God the necessary space for what you petition. Maybe it is as someone living with dementia. Maybe it is in the caregiver role. Maybe you have one of these roles, but you are going to give God the necessary space in another part of life. Whatever the case, please know of my prayers for you.
Jesus, I trust in You!
