Sometimes the Best Spiritual Director is Charlie Brown

This meme came up on my Facebook page this morning. I had to laugh because it's the same message I've been reading in the surrender novena and in one of my favorite books, Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence. Charlie Brown must have been reading it!

But wait, you say, evil "happens." How can that be God's will? 

God does not will sin. He gave us free will and we can attempt to put our will over His by defying His laws and doing evil. But then what "happens"?

Read the Old Testament starting with Adam and Eve. Think of the Easter Exsultet which describes the "happy fault [of Adam] that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer." See how God uses evil tyrants throughout the bible to punish the chosen people and bring them to their knees. Think of the glorious martyrs murdered by evil tyrants who used the power allowed them by Almighty God to grievously sin against him. Their actions gave the Church countless saints including the Holy Innocents, the precursors of the little ones murdered today by abortion and abortifacient birth control. How many of their parents are converted by the grief they experience over their actions -- our modern Magdalenes and Pauls.

I know many people whose sins and their devastating consequences brought them to true repentance and conversion. Would grievous sinners have reached the heights of sanctity without the grief they experienced over their sins? Think of St. Peter weeping after his betrayal. God willed his repentance and the humility his sin engendered.  St. Paul's glorious conversion took root in recognizing the evil he had committed against God in persecuting the Christian community.

How many saints led lives of great sin before their evil wills disintegrated in the burning furnace of God's love. Think of St. Augustine who ran from God for so long. We can see him in the protagonist of Francis Thompson's The Hound of Heaven. Can't you hear these words coming from the mouth of Augustine:

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears

I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

Up vistaed hopes I sped;

And shot, precipitated,

Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,

From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

But with unhurrying chase,

And unperturbèd pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

They beat—and a Voice beat

More instant than the Feet—

‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’

Let us praise God for everything in our lives: the joys, the sorrows, the suffering, the persecution and calumny and betrayal of family and friends.  Nothing "just happens;" it is all God's will. Sometimes I choose a word for the day and write it in my prayer journal. Today I will choose the word SUBMISSION. It's what God wants from us, submission to His holy will. Once we accept everything as coming from God we can smile through our tears knowing that one day we will see the glorious good God brought from it and like the protagonist in The Hound of Heaven we will hear the words of God:

All which I took from thee I did but take,

Not for thy harms,

But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.

All which thy child’s mistake

Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:

Rise, clasp My hand, and come!’

Let me end with the meditation I received in my inbox this morning:

Let us now meditate on the precepts that our Lord commands us to follow in respect to those who persecute us, or rather the Church of Jesus Christ in our persons. "Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you; and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you; that you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who maketh His sun to rise upon the good and bad." What wonderful gentleness is contained in these words! Are they impossible to obey? No, says St. Jerome, for we see them fulfilled in St. Stephen the first martyr, and those who followed him. All of them, when dying, prayed for their mur­derers. We find them obeyed again by the first Chris­tians, of whom the Apostle says boldly, "We are reviled, and we bless: we are blasphemed, and we entreat."

Remember, nothing "just happens." All is the will of God for our good, our salvation, and the salvation of others. Let us offer our sufferings for Holy Mother Church, persecuted "in our persons." Our sacrifice can contribute to the revival of the faith. 

May Jesus Christ be praised!