God does not cease to grant us His grace; He will always attend to us by overcoming our human and mediocre criteria.
Newsroom (07/09/2022 8:22 PM, Gaudium Press) “Will God never answer me?” It is a question that arises in our interior from time to time, especially during the periods when we pray most insistently to be cleansed of our miseries.
We are freed from some evil, and then another one appears on our horizon; or, even worse, we strive to overcome one defect, and as soon as we have won the victory, we become aware of the existence of several others. To make matters worse, we discover daily that others are in a similar situation.
So, does God answer our requests or not?
Catholic doctrine teaches us that whatever we ask for in prayer, the Almighty grants it to us, provided it contributes to our good, the culmination of which is eternal glory in Paradise.
In most cases, great harm would be done to us if Divine Providence were to free us from our miseries and weaknesses. How can this be? It sounds absurd, but in reality it is not.
Help us to be grateful to God
To better understand the first premise of such an affirmation, let us resort to a domestic example. Let us imagine that a mother wanted to prepare an extraordinary party for her daughter to celebrate her entrance into college.
She invites the girl’s friends, takes care of the house arrangements and secretly prepares delicious dishes. On the date set, the young girl is faced with a wonderful surprise. The mother also receives a surprise, but an unpleasant one.
Her daughter simply does not partake of anything that her mother has lovingly prepared. With no appetite, she makes little of the affection of the one who loves her so much. Would not such an attitude be an enormous ingratitude?
In the Gospel we find an opposite example of this young woman: the lame, poor, crippled and blind called by the rich man to his feast (cf. Lk 14:21), who helped themselves to every delicacy, showing that the more indigent the guest, the more he will be filled with gifts.
In an analogous way, if our physical or spiritual gaps were filled completely, we would run the risk of deceptively judging our needs to be met and we would soon forget to seek the source of living water, the dispenser of heavenly gifts, the only one who, in fact, can satisfy our longings: God.
And, like the unappealing young woman, we would easily fall into an abyss more terrible than sin: the lack of recognition of the Most High.
A blind man who can see without an optic nerve
Now, if we are wrong in making our supplications, this is no reason for God not to grant us His grace. If it is true that He always heeds us, overcoming our human and mediocre criteria, it is also true that He builds indestructible castles on the quagmire of misfortunes!
A little story may help us to better understand this second point of our considerations. A virtuous couple gave birth to a long-awaited child to whom the parents spared no amount of affection.
However, months passed and they noticed something strange with their child. They took him to the doctor and the diagnosis was discouraging: the child was blind, because he lacked an optic nerve; he was mute, because he was born without vocal cords; and he was deaf, because he lacked an auditory canal. Distraught, they both wondered what they could do, though the medical specialist delivered the sentence to them and their child: “There is no solution!”
Back at home, the pious parents’ spirits remained high, because they did not lack one thing: faith. Lying their son on his lap, the father laid his hands on his head, and the two spouses, their eyes filled with hope, looked up to Heaven and prayed for the cure of their beloved little one.
Immediately the child reacted differently. They all exchanged gazes and an innocent smile appeared on the baby’s puerile lips. Convinced of the miracle achieved, the parents could only exclaim, “Son!” To which the baby replied resoundingly!
God, who is Father, is also Son and Love. He had listened with pleasure to the parents’ prayer and promptly answered them. Undeterred, the couple rushed back to the doctor to confirm the divine intervention. The result surprised them: the boy could see without an optic nerve, could speak without vocal cords, and could hear without an auditory canal. He was a miracle child!
Grace will work wonders of holiness in us
This hypothetical case illustrates in a small way the reality of those whom God sanctifies. Grace works in the soul, which is endowed with spiritual gifts; but defects are not removed immediately, nor do struggles or diabolical attacks cease.
In short, God does not take away the miseries, but sanctifies the miserable. In this way, the supernatural work becomes more evident, shining more brightly than if it were focused on someone without faults.
This explains the sufferings of so many saints who, though they lived in an edifying manner, gave themselves up to penance and prayer, shedding tears and asking Heaven for strength not only to face external adversities, but above all to conquer themselves. A statement of St. Paul proves this well: “That the greatness of the revelations might not lead me to pride, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, an angel of Satan to buffet me and deliver me from the danger of vanity” (II Cor 12:7).
Does it not seem strange that Satan should deliver one from vanity? God uses evil to bring good out of evil, as the Apostle goes on to describe: “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for it is in weakness that My strength is fully revealed'” (II Cor 12:8-9a). Perhaps for this reason the Blessed Virgin at Lourdes performed cures similar to that of the child in our story and, to symbolize this truth, our Lord Jesus Christ wished to remain with His glorious wounds after the Resurrection.
The joy of being miserable
The important thing is not to become discouraged when we are faced with our miseries, however repeatedly they manifest themselves; nor, ever, to give up in the battle against the devil, the world and the flesh.
We must have patience and dedication, certain that if we put on trust, grace will never cease to work in us. Mary Most Holy is not the Lady of unfinished works and, through Her, God will work wonders in us, poor cripples who hope in His fatherly omnipotence.
In this way we can rightly cry out in unison with all the righteous of history: “I prefer to glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. This is why I take joy in weaknesses, in insults, in needs […]. For when I feel weak, then I am strong” (II Cor 12, 9b-10)!
Compiled by Sandra Chisholm
