49. In God “we live and move and have our being” (Acts of the Apostles 17:28).

In God “we live and move and have our being” (Acts of the Apostles 17:28).

YOUCAT Catechism + Catechism of the Catholic Church Lesson 49

Ave Maria series

DIVINE PROVIDENCE

49.  Does God guide the world and my life?

Yes, but in a mysterious way; God guides everything along paths that only he knows, leading it to its perfection.  At no point in time does something that he has created fall out of his hands.  [302-305]

Nelson Mandela (photo insert) and Jacob’s son Joseph (painting) are examples of prisoners who, once freed, were saviors and leaders of their people.  Mandela, a political prisoner in South Africa, averted bloodshed with the downfall of apartheid (separation of races).  Joseph (small figure in blue), though sold into slavery by his jealous older brothers forgave them and went on to fed and sheltered all of his family.  Though the two men were separated by about 3,800 years in time, both were instruments of God’s divine providence of which mankind’s salvation in Jesus Christ is the sum total of everything. --Don L. Bragg   .........49

God influences both the great events of history and also the little events of our personal life, without reducing our freedom or making us mere marionettes in his eternal plan.  In God “we live and move and have our being” (Acts of the Apostles 17:28).  God is in everything we meet in all the changes in our life, even in the painful events and the seemingly meaningless coincidences.  God wants to write straight even with the crooked lines of our life.  What he takes away from us and what he gives us, the ways in which he strengthens us and the ways in which he tests us—all these are arrangements and signs of his will.  43

“Trust in divine providence is the firm, lively faith that God can and will help us.  It is obvious that he can help us, since he is all-powerful.  It is certain that he will help us, because he promised it in many passages of Sacred Scripture and keeps all his promises faithfully.”  Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997)

Even the hairs of your head are all numbered.  (Matthew 10:30)

“He who made you knows also what he wants to do with you.”  St. Augustine (354-430)

302-305

GOD CARRIES OUT HIS PLAN: DIVINE PROVIDENCE

302 Creation has its own goodness and proper perfection, but it did not spring forth complete from the hands of the Creator. The universe was created "in a state of journeying" (in statu viae) toward an ultimate perfection yet to be attained, to which God has destined it. We call "divine providence" the dispositions by which God guides his creation toward this perfection:

By his providence God protects and governs all things which he has made, "reaching mightily from one end of the earth to the other, and ordering all things well". For "all are open and laid bare to his eyes", even those things which are yet to come into existence through the free action of creatures.( Vatican Council I, Dei Filius 1: Denzinger-Schonmetzer 3003; compare Wisdom 8:1; Hebrews 4:13.)¹⁶¹ –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

303 The witness of Scripture is unanimous that the solicitude of divine providence is concrete and immediate; God cares for all, from the least things to the great events of the world and its history. The sacred books powerfully affirm God's absolute sovereignty over the course of events: "Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases."( Psalm 115:3.)¹⁶² And so it is with Christ, "who opens and no one shall shut, who shuts and no one opens".(Revelation 3:7.)¹⁶³ As the book of Proverbs states: "Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will be established."( Proverbs 19:21.)¹⁶⁴ –CCC

304 And so we see the Holy Spirit, the principal author of Sacred Scripture, often attributing actions to God without mentioning any secondary causes. This is not a "primitive mode of speech", but a profound way of recalling God's primacy and absolute Lordship over history and the world,( Compare Isaiah 10:5-15; Isa 45:5; Deuteronomy 32:39; Sirach 11:14.)¹⁶⁵ and so of educating his people to trust in him. The prayer of the Psalms is the great school of this trust.( Compare Psalm 22; Ps 32; Ps 35; Ps 103; Ps 138; et al.)¹⁶⁶ –CCC

305 Jesus asks for childlike abandonment to the providence of our heavenly Father who takes care of his children's smallest needs: "Therefore do not be anxious, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?". . . Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well."_{( Matthew 6:31-33; compare Mt 10:29-31.)167} --CCC