“Doing Our Part to Trust in Divine Providence”
Homily, Mass for the Celebration of the Lunar New Year
February 8, 2025; St. Mary’s Cathedral
Readings: Gen 1:14-18; Psalm 104; 1 Jn 3:1-3; Mt 6 31-34
Introduction
We all know and love the famous Padre Pio, now St. Pio of Pietralcina. The stories of his miraculous interventions are endless, but perhaps he is most famous for the words of wisdom he would often repeat to those who sought him out: “Pray, hope and don’t worry.”
This is essentially the commandment our Lord gives us in the Gospel for this Mass we celebrate at the beginning of the lunar new year: “[D]o not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’” “Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.” Very sage advice for us as we look forward to this year that lies open before us.
Perhaps you are thinking, though, that this is something easy to say, but much harder to do. After all, there is so much to worry about in the world these days! So maybe a good point for us to start in considering how to really appropriate this sage advice into our lives is to – no surprise here! – think about God! And how God acts. That is, let us think about how God acts in history.
This is actually a very biblical way to look at it. The ancient people of Israel always saw God as revealing Himself and His loving plan of salvation for them through their history, the concrete historical events that happened to them: He led them out of slavery in Egypt, giving them a miraculous crossing of the Red Sea and guiding them through the desert even though they kept getting lost and rebelling against Him, but He continued to provide for them nonetheless; He helped them settle in the land He promised them and allowed them to establish a kingdom even though it was worldly envy, not fidelity to the Covenant He had made with them, that caused them to want to do so; and after the kingdom was destroyed and pillaged and the people exiled to foreign countries because of their disobedience, He promised to send them an anointed one to reestablish that kingdom and return them to it. Yes, He often had to bring them low, but it was so that He could win them back to Himself.
Is this not how God acts in our own lives as well? In times of doubt we should look back on our own personal history, and see how God was always coming to our rescue in those times of distress. He is working out His loving plan of salvation for each one of us, that mystery that we call in our religion “Divine Providence.”
God’s Revelation in His Promises
But the ancient people of Israel also saw God revealing Himself to them in the promises that He made to them. Acknowledging how He has acted in our lives in the past to rescue us from trouble and distress gives us confidence that He will fulfill His promises to us in the future, but according to His own time and in His own way. God’s goodness, wisdom and power can be seen in both, in the acts of salvation He has worked in our lives and in the promises He holds out to us. And the two come together in the person of Jesus Christ, and all that he has done for our eternal salvation: coming among us in human flesh, freely submitting himself to suffering and even death on the cross, and then rising to eternal glory on the third day.
God does indeed fulfill His promises, and does so beyond what we could imagine. This is how He acts from the very beginning.
Light
So, then, let us go back to the very beginning of the Bible. What is the first thing that God creates? It follows upon His first commandment: “Let there be light.” And so there was light. The first thing God creates is light. That is the first day of creation. In our first reading for Mass today we heard about the fourth day of creation, when God gives order to the light that He has created by providing for its governance: the greater light, the sun, to govern the day and the lesser light, the moon, to govern the night, giving even the darkness of night some glimmer of light to keep His people safe and protected. This is our God: He creates light for us, and He will rightly order our lives so that His light can penetrate into us, if we allow Him to do so.
Prayer
But that is the key, if we allow Him to. How do we do that? Well, what does our Lord tell us? “Seek first the Kingdom [of God] and His righteousness.” That is, look always to God, keep Him always the first priority in our life, regulate everything we do in accordance with what will please Him. Which brings us to the other part of the sage advice Padre Pio gives us. There is a little more to his repeated exhortation. The complete advice is: “Pray, hope and don’t worry. Worry is useless. Our Merciful Lord will listen to your prayer.”
In order to seek God’s Kingdom and righteousness, that is, to be in a right relationship with Him, prayer must have the primacy in our life. Our faith in His Divine Providence is exercised first and foremost in our prayer, for prayer is both praise and thanksgiving for the goodness of God we have already experienced (God’s actions in history), and petition for the fulfillment of His promises.
Conclusion
This precise point of time in which we find ourselves right now is exemplative of what Divine Providence means to us: one year draws to a close in which we reflect back with thanksgiving for all that God has done for us, as a new year opens up to us in which we look forward with hope to God fulfilling His promises, but always trusting that He will do so in the way that is best for our eternal salvation, which so often may not be what we originally had in mind. Let us ask God to quicken within us the hope we need to trust in His goodness, wisdom and power, and to be at peace without worry for what tomorrow will bring. Let us ask God for the grace to pray, hope and not worry, confident that He will listen to our prayer, and will work out everything for the good of our eternal salvation. Amen.
Photo: Dennis Callahan