Today is Monday of the 1st Week of Lent.
Listen for the subtle difference in the collects for Holy Mass in the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Forms.
Today we hear Pope Benedict XVI about temptation.
Thus, the Holy Father…
We cannot “do an experiment” in which God has to respond and show that he is God: We must believe in him! We should not make God “the substance” of “our experiment.”
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The third temptation brings to mind Judith rebuking the Elders, a passage I have always liked and reminds me how important it is to trust God.
“Who are you, that have put God to the test this day, and are setting yourselves up in the place of God among the sons of men? You are putting the Lord Almighty to the test-but you will never know anything! You cannot plumb the depths of the human heart, nor find out what man is thinking; how do you expect to search out God, who made all these things, and find out His mind or comprehend His thought? No, my brethren, do not provoke the Lord our God to anger. For if He does not choose to help us within these five days, He has power to protect us within any time he pleases, or even to destroy us in the presence of our enemies. Do not try to bind the purposes of the Lord our God; for God is not like man, to be threatened, nor like a human being, to be won over by pleading. Therefore, while we wait for His deliverance, let us call upon Him to help us, and He will hear our voice, if it pleases Him”.
Judith 8:12-17
As for the word left out in the NO Collect, I’m speechless!
This reminds me of the famous Chesterton quote, as told by Fr. Dwight Longnecker:
“You know the old story about G.K.Chesterton. There was a series of articles and letters in the paper [The Times of London] about what was wrong with the world. So he writes,
‘Dear Sir,
What is wrong with the world?
I am,’
Yours Sincerely,
G.K.Chesterton.”
“He has power to protect us within any time he pleases, or even to destroy us in the presence of our enemies. ”
This is something that has always bothered me in prayer. How does one whether one must wait longer for an answer to prayer or that God is going to destroy one in the presence of our enemies? In other words, how does one distinguish between God saying, “Wait,” or God saying, “No?”
The Chicken
How does one know whether…
Dear Chicken,
I’m really probably the last person who should attempt to answer your question. After discovering Fr. Z.’s blog last summer, I feel as though I’m now having to re-learn my faith again for the third time in my life; this time from a traditional perspective that I previously knew nothing about (and wish I had known from the cradle). So, I’m really very stupid about things like this. I want to give you my reply to this for a few reasons. I’m going through the exact same thing as you described. I’ve been discerning some matters in my life and have been for about two years. I’ve had no answer that I can put my finger on. Things seem to be like a car in neutral. So, if my answer to you is correct, then maybe we’ll both benefit from me sharing it, and hopefully others will too. I could use a little reassurance that I’m on the right path in at least one area of my faith. If my answer is incorrect, then I’m in as great a need of a better answer as you are. So here goes…
I keep waiting and trusting. That’s it. Nothing profound at all. No matter how long it takes, I just do my best to keep praying, trusting, and waiting. When I feel myself being tempted to give in to that little voice that tries to creep into my head to say, “You have no patience”, “Maybe if you were holier and more faithful, God would answer you” etc., etc. When I feel tempted to give in and listen to those negative voices, I try to remind myself of who it is that would benefit most from my becoming discouraged – the Enemy. Then I stop everything and beg God to give me strength to continue waiting with patience, strength to trust when doubts try to creep into my mind, and wisdom to be able to recognize God’s answer when He decides to give me one.
The other thing I do is, once in awhile during the waiting period, I’ll try opening a door or two should one appear to be presenting itself to me. During those times when I have a great deal of trouble figuring out if I’m pursuing something because I think God wants me to (versus the times when “I” want to, and I assign my pursuit to God to serve my own interests), it seems to work out that if a particular path is the one that God is leading me down, then nothing I do, intentionally or unintentionally, can screw it up. If it’s not from God, nothing I do, intentionally, nor unintentionally, will make it happen. By the way, I don’t know if God works this way with every soul or not, but with me, He seems to wait before giving me an answer. He seems to wait until I’m really at wit’s end and I’m about to lose my mind. Seriously. Right at the point when I’m about to become hysterical and I’m completely broken down, mentally and spiritually, (sometimes, though rarely so far, even pyhsically), right at that 11th hour, that’s usually when God swoops in and puts everything right. And He usually does it in the blink of an eye after all of that waiting. And He usually makes it look very effortless on His part – which makes me feel really awful for having let myself become hysterical in the the first place. Once He fixes everything for me so easily, then it dawns on me that I wasted a lot of time worrying; time that I could have enjoyed if only I had been more steadfast in my trust. So see that? I don’t even take my own advice sometimes!
Based on the comments that you post here, I know that you’re far more educated about our faith than I am, so I’m sorry if my answer is too overly simplistic, or not on a more theological level or something. It’s just that no one seems to have answered you yet so I thought that maybe some kind of an answer might be better than none at all. At least you know you aren’t going through it alone. Maybe we can keep one another in prayer.
OrthodoxChick,
Thanks!