Some Thoughts About God's Providence On this 18th Sunday after Pentecost

The 18th Sunday after Pentecost brings us a new "mini-series." It's theme will be "The Sense of Providence." Our guide will be father Gerald Vann, O.P. 

As a refresher, "O.P." indicates he was a member of the Dominican order, founded by St. Dominic. There's a lovely short bio of him written by one of this Dominican brothers that you can find HERE. (https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/EC7734F23EAC4F6FE3154279DC67B9A0/S1754201400016593a.pdf/father_gerald_vann_op_19061963.pdf 

This "sense of Providence" of which Father writes begins with the need to learn to love God such that we desire that our will becomes identical with God's Will.

If we've spent any time reading good spiritual works, we likely have come upon this idea. And it may even be the case that it makes a whole lot of sense to us (which it should, of course). But arriving at the point where our will is consistent with His Will may not be something we have fully taken in and made our own.

No surprise here, since our "self" likely isn't too happy with the idea. We prefer much that may not be exactly God's Will. And even if we have made progress to some extent, it should not surprise that we have perhaps reserved some areas or items that we're not willing to give up, something we reserve for ourselves, even as we suspect these might not be perfectly consistent with God's Will.

So with that brief background, let's read what Father Vann has to say. Even better, let's really read through and meditate on what he has to say. 

We'll see that once we learn to love God, we can, and should, take the next step and learn to know of and love His Providence. This understanding of His Providence incorporates faith, trust, and the understanding that His Plan is a loving plan. The example of the little boy helping his carpenter father will help us to see this in the proper light. 

We begin...

The Sense of Providence (Part 1 of 4)
Father Gerald Vann, O.P.

“Though I should walk in the valley of darkness, says the Psalmist, yet will I fear no evil: for Thou art with me. If we want to be holy – and happy – we have to learn to love God enough to make our will identical with His, so that when we say, Thy will be done, we really mean it, not only about this and that but about everything. We need therefore a strong sense of God’s providence, and a deep love of God’s providence. What does it mean, to love God’s providence? It does not mean, in the first place, the fatalism that makes no efforts. On the contrary, the efforts that we can make are part of God’s plan; events do depend on our free-will. Nor does it mean that purely natural placidity of temperament that some people enjoy, so that nothing seems able to ruffle their composure. Nor again is it a merely passive resignation, as the word is often understood: a reluctant admission that what can’t be cured must be endured. No: the Lord is our Shepherd; He is with us. And we are to have faith and trust that His plan is a loving plan: that though things are very black, His wisdom and love and power are there to save and to heal, to bring good out of the evil. You know how a little boy, helping his father with a job of carpentry, will concentrate on some little thing that his father gives him to do, not seeing how the finished work will emerge from these preliminaries, but content, trusting implicitly that the job will be finished, and will be successful. We should do the same with our lives and all the things that make up our lives: God gives us this little bit of His work to do for Him, and we ought to have the child’s trust that His skill and His love will see the work through, and concentrate on our own minute share in it, in doing that well. So we should be saved from that solicitude against which our Lord warns us. He does not tell us that we must not work, must not plan ahead; He does not tell us that everything will be done for us; of course not. But He does tell us that we must not be always worrying and fretting and making a great commotion, as though we and not He were responsible for the universe.”

Happy 18th Sunday after Pentecost!