Our God is Love. God promises us His love, every day and always.
However, in our fallen state, we constantly construe His love to mean what we want.
God does not promise us a life without trial. –See Moses, King David, Joseph and his brothers, all of Exodus, all of history.
He does not guarantee that a faithful life will be uninterrupted by evil. Go read the story of Susanna, of Ruth, the Book of Tobit, or the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt.
The Gospel does not promise prosperity, but salvation.
The rich will be sent away empty. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Lazarus is carried up to the bosom of Abraham by angels. He sat at the rich man’s gate, and the dogs licked his sores. The world will still be, it’s just you will be participating in its salvation by how you respond to despair, grief, hurt, disaster, suffering and death. You will “make up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.” You will be invited to carry your cross.
Likewise, the sacraments do not ensure that we will never sin –that would be taking away our free will. So sinners who know it, and sinners who ignore their reality, have been receiving all the sacraments since the last supper. “Lord I am not worthy,” is always our fundamental reality. Anyone who says differently, is selling something, possibly the Gospel of propserity, but not the truth of our faith. Not the truth of the Gospels.
The sacraments bring us grace.
The gifts of grace allows us to weather all the world throws at us, but we are still a part of the struggle itself. We must wrestle with the world and with God, and sometimes, we will be in error all the way around. On the boat, we will be tossed and turned and think that the Lord is sleeping, or that He does not understand our fear, our pain, our trials, our suffering. We may be tempted to think God isn’t, because how could a God who loves us, allow us to endure all that we endure.
However, we need only look at Christ’s life, and that of his mother, Holy Mary, and his adoptive Father, Saint Joseph. She never sinned, and found herself put in the position of potentially being put to shame, pregnant with the son of God. He by all accounts, was a good and holy man, and found himself charged with protecting Mary and the son of God. They fled to Egypt, knowing that the regime was killing all under the age of two. They worked and labored in obscurity –there had to be the trial of doubt for Saint Joseph, and the trial of when, for Mary. Both exercised Holy patience, trusting in God’s plan.
God’s plan included suffering, betrayal, abandonment, despair, grave injustice, gloating, and death. How could this be good? Looking at the cross, at our Lord crucified, we must remember, as much as we love Jesus, He loves us more. As much as we endure each day, on the cross He willingly endured all exclusively for us in particular, to win us back. He keeps the wounds, so we will know, He loves us with everything. He also knows, we howl at the gaping aches in our lives, at the open wounds of the world. He longs to make all of it and us whole, and holy.
In all things, He is with you. He is not the sun, but lets you know his beauty and warmth through it. He is not the rain but gives life through it. He is why we do not understand violence or ugliness, we were never intended to know it. He is not the air but ever more necessary.
Trust is what He asks. Grace is what He promises. God never stops offering, and never ceases giving. It is up to us to receive. If we do, it will be not just good, but very, very good.
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