Some
Thoughts on the Liturgy
EVERYTHING
IS MEANT TO HELP US
On
December 26, 2004, the worse tsunami in history hit
Thailand, killing literally hundreds of thousands of people
including many foreign tourists. At least one of those
tourist families that we know of survived. The family was
made up of the husband and wife, and three children; they
were caught in the destruction, yet unbelievably were
united together. The story is told in the movie “The
Impossible.”
At
the end of the movie, Maria, the mother, is headed home by
plane to a hospital along with her family. Even though she
is immensely happy that her family was together, as she
looked at the damage from the air, the only thing she could
do was cry with sorrow because of the losses of family
members that most of the people involved in the tragedy
felt as a result of the calamity. You can read her thoughts
in her sorrow: how and why is God working in such a way
that some families will be happy while some will never feel
happiness? It is a question that not only comes as a result
of this particular tragedy, but every tragedy.
The
feast of the Ascension is a classic spiritual example of
good coming from something that was not so good. The “not
so good” is Jesus’s
departure, his leaving the disciples. We can well imagine
his disciples begging him not to leave. But the good was—as
Jesus promised—that he would always be with us. Jesus
accomplished that by the gift of the Holy Spirit, the
“power from on high” that he promised. It was the
beginning of our understanding of how God is part of
everything that happens.
For
the believer, everything
that happens must be looked at as God’s plan in some way
because we have the Holy Spirit acting within us. Or
another way of saying it in a personal way: “Everything
that happens to us is meant to help us in one way or
another.”
There
are a couple of applications to the feast of the Ascension,
but I like this one—Jesus promising the Holy Spirit as he
left makes our lives part of the Holy Spirit’s work.
Therefore a Christian must look at everything as a gift
from God. There is no such thing as luck. It is an
extremely difficult belief because it is not easy to see
tragedy or sudden accidents or severe pain or terminal
illnesses as gifts from God. But if we believe what Jesus
said, given the fact that he is always with us, the power
from on high has been and will always be there as long as
we believe in him. We can count on the things that happen
to us to be only
the working of the Holy Spirit within us.
I
recommend some homework for you: to re-read the interesting
story of Joseph in the book of Genesis, chapters 37-45. In
general, Joseph, the son of Jacob is treated dreadfully by
his brothers, and was nearly murdered by them. At the end
of the story when he is in a superior position over them,
and he recalled what they did to him, his response was:
It
was really for the sake of saving lives that God sent me
here ahead of you.
The
rational person would say—God did not send him there at
all—it was evil that did it. But Joseph could say, and we
should be able to say—in every circumstance—God sent me
here with these circumstances, with what has happened in
life, and it is for the good—somehow, some way.
One
of the lessons of this feast is that Jesus had to leave in
order to have the Holy Spirit active in our lives. Once
that Spirit is part of our lives, then it becomes true that
“everything is meant to help us in one way or another.”
If we have that attitude, we will look at the whole of life
a little differently.
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