We must keep in mind that God’s promises always come true, and therefore we must model our existence after them.
Newsroom (21/12/2021 09:30 AM, Gaudium Press) Since the expulsion of Adam from paradise, God’s people began to live in expectation of one day being redeemed from the sin of their first parents. Centuries of anxious waiting in which all the righteous prayed and asked for the coming of the Messiah.
To increase the hope of His people and not to let their faith wane, God sent a string of prophets to confirm the truth that He Himself had promised, that one day the Savior would come.
God promises, and how does man respond?
In a prophecy Micah uttered centuries before the birth of Jesus, the prophet reminds the people that God would not completely abandon his chosen ones, but would soon come to their aid; bringing back the children of Israel through a King, whose origin is lost in eternity, and who would bring peace to the whole earth (Cf. Mic 5:1-4).
This was one of the innumerable promises of the Incarnation of the Word received by the Jews; and before this promise only two attitudes were possible: either to adhere fully to the Messiah and live according to his doctrine and morals, or to ignore him, remaining indifferent – and then do everything possible to kill him.
Such, no doubt, was the response of many of those who heard these or other foreshadowings of redemption over the centuries. There were some who welcomed the word of God with joy, and others who, despite being favored with such great gifts, continued to live as if nothing had happened, acting against the words of the prophets, because the mere presence of these envoys of God ended up being a burden on their conscience?
The burning desire for fulfillment
If each one of us recalls the episodes of his life, without much difficulty he will come across facts in which he personally was the target of God’s promises.
On the day of his first communion, for example, perhaps someone received a grace that led him to virtue, making him aware that Our Lord was really present in the Sacrament, in order to support him, help him, and, in a word, redeem him.
Another may have been sensitively visited by entering a church, by participating in the sacred liturgy, which communicated to him the desire to order his life according to the law of the Lord.
How many promises to humanity could we list here? Lourdes, Fatima, and an endless number of manifestations?
If these – and many others – were the gifts granted by Heaven throughout an individual’s life, at each invitation we also receive the promise of its fulfillment. Thus, our attitude before such calls should be: “I have come to do your will, O God” (Heb 10:7).
It is necessary, then, to believe in these motions of grace, to try to live with them always before the eyes of the soul, modeling our life according to these promises, so that we may be “awakened by the power of God, who brings us salvation at once” (Cf. Ps 79:3).
Let us then implore the help of Our Lady in this regard, for she is the “blessed one who believed, and what the Lord promised her was fulfilled” (Cf. Lk 1:45).
By Jerome Sequeira Vaz
Compiled by Camille Mittermeier
