A Daily Meditation

Orig: 11/09/07

A glance at the WSJ headlines today, a check of the markets, and a call from mom's. "The sky is falling", or so it seems. These things happened before I took the time to glance at today's meditations. How great God is to "calm the troubled waters".


The Opposing One

"God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." Humble yourselves, therefore. -- 1Peter 5:5

God opposes the proud. What a heavy thought! We certainly need to have God working with us, not against us, so we must yield our need to be in control. We must invite him to become the Leader, Guide, and Shepherd while we become the followers, the students, the lambs.

Humility comes from a sense of total dependence on God, a complete trust in his faithfulness and care. In contrast, when we feel anxious, we are taking control. We're being bossy. Proud. We are saying, in effect, "God, hurry!! It's going to be too late! Please hurry!" We are wishing a situation would change from its present state to what it could be -- from God's timing to our timing.

On the other hand, if we are humble, we recognize that God is in control and that he is greater than we are. Then ours is a faith that ackowledges a bigger picture, a higher realm, than the one we may presently see.

So we boldly cast our anxiety and worry onto the greater one. We declare our dependence on him and fling away our independence. What a joy it is to do so, to place ourselves "under God's mighty hand" and to fix our eyes on Jesus, as he lifts us up -- in his time, not ours.

Lord Jesus, right now I throw my anxiety, my worry, and my pointless concern onto you. I humble myself under your mighty hand.

Between Sundays -- Shawn Craig Friday, Week 23.


November 9

"Blessed are those who mourn" (Mt 5:4). To emphasize the paradox, this beatitude might well be translated "Blessed are those who are not crowned with happiness." Semantically, then, the word "blessed" in the beatitudes has nothing to do with such words as "'happy"" or "well"". One who mourns certainly does not feel "well". In order to preserve the full vigor of the paradox, if that were the case, the beatitude would have to be translated "Happy are those who are not happy." But in that case what a strange "happiness"" is intended by the the word "blessed"?
It seems to me that the word has two temporal dimensions: it includes both the present and the future, although admittedly in a quite different sense. The present is represented by the nearness of God and his Kingdom that is promised to the one who mourns. That would mean, then, that precisely in the realm of suffering and mourning God and his Kingdom are especially close. When a person suffers and cries out, the heart of God is touched and moved in a special way. The crying out calls on him to "come down" (cf Ex 3:7).
This "present" of the divine descent that is implicit in the word "blessed" includes a future: God's still hidden presence will one day be revealed. This, then, is the true meaning of the beatitude: Do not be troubled by your afflictions; God is near to you and will be your abundant consolation. A remarkable summary of this whole paradox of Christian existence as refashioned by the suffering one has experienced and endured is to be found in 2 Corinthians 4:16: "'Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day."
The linear movement of our life toward death is answered by the circle of divine love, which becomes a new line for us -- a continuous and always advancing renewal of the life that is in us the more that life becomes simply a relationship between me and the Incarnate Truth: Jesus.

Co-Workers of the Truth, Meditations for Every Day -- Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger