Oct 17 Tue
Reflections on Psalm 2 (2)
Heaven is committed to carrying out his plan of salvation. This certainty should encourage us to be more faithful, more dedicated, and more generous, every day.
"I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession."
These are his plans. He could, of course, do it without us; but he wants to do it with us; we should be good instruments in his hands. Accordingly, he purifies us, so that we come to realize that everything comes from him and nothing from ourselves. "All the many setbacks we have suffered have never made us lose our joy or our peace for a single moment, because we found how God brings forth sweetness, wonderful honey, from the dry rocks of hardship: He filled them with honey from the rock."
"We must have certain guiding principles to come back to, regularly; to strike fire from them anew. One of them is this: we are not alone, because God exists, and he called me into existence, he holds me in being, and gives me my strength. What's more, he has chosen me out with special love, and if I trust him, he will give me constancy and firmness for my journey, because when he begins something, he completes it; all his works are perfect."
And so, in any difficulties that may come up, tell the fearful person, if need be, those words of Isaiah: "Say to the fainthearted, take courage and fear not, because our God will always carry us forward."
The work of Redemption "will continue for as long as there are people on earth. Therefore, you and I have to put our whole lives into making sure that the Work never comes to any harm out of lack of vitality or lack of fortitude."
"You have to be balm and strength for other people, you must be ever-conscious of our Lord's words: Without me, apart from me you can do nothing." While our Lord could perfectly well do everything himself, he prefers to make use of us, and even of our shortcomings. "Look at the holy Gospel: our Lord's Apostles were useless, selfish and ignorant. You or I would never have chosen them for the job."
The same is true now, "God chose what is foolish in the world, to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world, to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are."
We look trustingly towards our Lord, confident that we are doing his Work. "Christ is under an obligation to you because of this promise, says St Augustine, and he is true and absolutely faithful."
Image: Paolo Veronese, The Wedding at Cana (1563), fragment.
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