50. “We are here to help each other Walk the mile and bear the load”

“We are here to help each other Walk the mile and bear the load”

YOUCAT Catechism + Catechism of the Catholic Church Lesson 50

Ave Maria series

50.  What role does man play in God’s providence?

The completion of creation through divine providence is not something that happens above and beyond us.  God invites us to collaborate in the completion of creation.  [307-308]

1937 during America’s Great Depression. ........Mrs. Hale and oldest son in front of their home near Black River Falls, Wisconsin. This farm house was built with a total expenditure of three dollars in money.  Lee Russell, 1903-1986, photographer. …..50

 “We are pilgrims on a journey, We are trav’lers on the road; We are here to help each other Walk the mile and bear the load” (The Servant Song, verse 2). .....50

Man can reject God’s will.  He does better, though, to become an instrument of God’s love.  Mother Teresa during her lifetime strove to think in this way: “I am only a little pencil in the hand of our Lord.  He may cut or sharpen the pencil.  He may write or draw whatever and whenever he wants.  If the writing or drawing is good, we do not honor the pencil or the material that is used, but rather the one who used it.”  Although God works with us and through us also, nevertheless we must never mistake our own thinking, planning, and doing for the working of God.  God does not need our work, as though he would lack something without it.

[307-308]

GOD CARRIES OUT HIS PLAN: DIVINE PROVIDENCE

Providence and secondary causes

307 To human beings God even gives the power of freely sharing in his providence by entrusting them with the responsibility of "subduing" the earth and having dominion over it.( Compare Genesis 1:26-28.)¹⁶⁸ God thus enables men to be intelligent and free causes in order to complete the work of creation, to perfect its harmony for their own good and that of their neighbors. Though often unconscious collaborators with God's will, they can also enter deliberately into the divine plan by their actions, their prayers and their sufferings.( Compare Colossians 1:24.)¹⁶⁹ They then fully become "God's fellow workers" and co-workers for his kingdom.( 1 Corinthians 3:9; 1 Thessalonians 3:2; Colossians 4:11.)¹⁷⁰ –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

308 The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator. God is the first cause who operates in and through secondary causes: "For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure."( Philippians 2:13; compare 1 Corinthians 12:6.)¹⁷¹ Far from diminishing the creature's dignity, this truth enhances it. Drawn from nothingness by God's power, wisdom and goodness, it can do nothing if it is cut off from its origin, for "without a Creator the creature vanishes."( Gaudium et Spes 36 § 3.)¹⁷² Still less can a creature attain its ultimate end without the help of God's grace.( Compare  Matthew 19:26; John 15:5; Jn 14:13)¹⁷³ --CCC