God Works Busily to Create and Save Us

Week One No. 3

Grace:

My Lord Jesus I beg for the grace to be able to know and trust the Spirit of Life working in the world, unfolding patiently through time, attentive each moment to the world and to me.

Scriptural Passages:

Isaiah 40: 1-11 The Lord is my Shepherd
John 6: 28-40 Christ is the bread sustaining my life
Luke 12: 22-32 Jesus considered the lilies of the field

Comfort, give comfort to my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her service is at an end, her guilt is expiated; Indeed, she has received from the hand of the LORD double for all her sins. A voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the LORD! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God! Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low; The rugged land shall be made a plain, the rough country, a broad valley. Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all mankind shall see it together; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken. A voice says, "Cry out!" I answer, "What shall I cry out?" "All mankind is grass, and all their glory like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower wilts, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it. (So then, the people is the grass.) Though the grass withers and the flower wilts, the word of our God stands forever." Go up onto a high mountain, Zion, herald of glad tidings; Cry out at the top of your voice, Jerusalem, herald of good news! Fear not to cry out and say to the cities of Judah: Here is your God! Here comes with power the Lord GOD, who rules by his strong arm; Here is his reward with him, his recompense before him. Like a shepherd he feeds his flock; in his arms he gathers the lambs, Carrying them in his bosom, and leading the ewes with care (Is 40: 1-11).

Points for Reflection:

Jesus once said, “My Father goes on working, and so do I” (Jn 5:17). For God is always the Creator and Lord, constantly making all things, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the living, not of the dead (to whom no person is dead).

Some find it hard believe that God pays any attention to them or their world. You have accepted the God of Jesus Christ who “causes his sun to rise on bad men as well as good, and his rain to fall on honest and dishonest men alike” (Mt 5:45). Every day, God puts light on your face and life in your limbs.

Jesus revealed that God the Almighty and Eternal wishes to be known as a God who works tenderly as a good mother and as steadily as a good father. This is how God loves: He gives gifts, remains in his gifts, and works busily in and through them for the good of those whom he creates. And then, God shares with you even his way of loving. You can learn to love the way God loves.

Jesus declared one time that “it is the Father, living in me, who is doing this work” (Jn 14:10). He kept saying that he and the Father are united. Baptized into his life, you can and must say the same. God is working in you, giving you life and light, and through you and along with you shaping your life world.

PRAYER: I am not like those who doubt you, Lord, my God. But it may be worse for me, because I pay no attention to you working in me and in my world. I would ask you to work in me to change that, good and caring God. Then I will sense and feel your holy power in my own spirit. Amen.


Source: Joseph Tetlow, S.J. (1989). Choosing Christ in the World. Saint Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources.