meditation of the day
Faith in the Lord’s Mercy
Many people today don’t feel loved, and they also fear that they’re not loveable. That’s why I like to start religious retreats with the Book of Genesis, to rehearse the story of Creation and to emphasize that all of this world—everything in it—is for us. God has gone to great lengths to give us a context. To understand that is to see a loving hand in everything around us, to think of love as something other than just an emotive feeling.
Some people think that if only they’d lived in another time—the Middle Ages, the Victorian years—they’d somehow have become more themselves. That’s nonsense. What they need to understand is that God has given each of us a specific context: the year we were born, the birth order in our family, the place and moment in history—all of it. I tell people: Don’t run away from the reality in which God has placed you. Its richness is all there for you.
One of my favorite stories in the Old Testament is that of David and Absalom. David wasn’t flawless. So why does God say that “David is a man who will do my will” (cf. 1 Sm 13:14), given all the sins committed by David? The answer lies in the end of the story. After Absalom commits his own share of sins, including having himself anointed and sending David on the lam, Absalom is killed and David’s response is still that of a loving father: O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you! O Absalom (2 Sm 18:33). This story gives us a glimpse into the heart of God. David is beloved despite all his sins, and particularly because he responds to his errant son as God responds to us: first and foremost, a loving father. God never tires of forgiving; we may tire of asking forgiveness. No matter what we’ve done, he would rather die than have us die. One has to come to that understanding of God to understand the Catholic faith.
Father Arne Panula
Father Arne Panula († 2017) was a priest of Opus Dei and for ten years served as director of the Catholic Information Center in Washington, DC. / From The Last Homily: Conversations with Fr. Arne Panula, Mary Eberstadt, Ed. © 2018, Emmaus Road Publishing, Steubenville, OH. All rights reserved.