What Does it Mean to Trust in the Lord?
Divine Mercy Sunday
“Give thanks to the LORD for he is good, his love is everlasting.”Ps. 118
TRUSTING IN GOD IS THE KEY; it can be said to be the root of the Christian life, because if we trust in Him, we will obey Him. If we do not obey Him, it is due to a lack of trust in Him. To trust in God is to trust in His words, which leads us to be part of the select and privileged group of Christ’s disciples, of whom Jesus says:
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand”Jn 10:27-28
It is about trusting in His words, not in our own desires, preferences, or longings, but in those of God. Therefore, it is not about falling into that kind of voluntarism or naivety where one declares one’s desires, thinking they will be fulfilled and confusing this with trust in God. In other words, it is not trusting in God to believe that what you ask for will necessarily happen, because JESUS TAUGHT US TO PLACE GOD’S WILL BEFORE OUR OWN.
This is the great lesson He gave us on many occasions, yet we are so self-centered and so attached to our own will that we resist learning it. Jesus teaches us very clearly to pray this in the Our Father: “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven!” But above all, He taught it in a clearer and more striking way in Gethsemane, when—even sweating blood—He prayed to the Father saying: “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” This already tells us a great deal, because we cannot assume that anything is possible. We do not know what is and what is not possible. And then He added: “yet not my will, but yours be done.”
Jesus spoke often about the priority of the Father’s will:
“… have food to eat that you do not know about… my food is to do the will of my Father and to accomplish His work”Jn 4
In other words, Jesus—the model that God gives us of a child of God, so that we may learn to be His children-taught us to be completely trusting in the Father’s will and totally detached from our own. This is the opposite of the one who thinks that God must submit to his own will, for it is we who must submit to His, as we say in the Lord’s Prayer: “thy will be done…”
This is what is right and just, because He knows infinitely more than we do—far more than the difference between parents and a four-year-old child. It is the parents who know what is best for the good of the child; therefore, the child must be docile to what his parents tell him for his own good. If he insists on his own will being done, things will go much worse for him. This is even more true in our relationship with God. Therefore, we must trust in Him more than in ourselves, for God is eternal and knows everything, while we are like newborns who know almost nothing. This is how He asked it to be written in the image of the Divine Mercy: Jesus, I trust in You.
Divine Mercy Sunday
Question:
Where did the feast of Divine Mercy come from?
Answer:
If you were born well before the year 2000, you know the feast of Divine Mercy has not always been celebrated in the Church. In the early 1900s, a young Polish nun began receiving private revelations. Jesus appeared to her during her times of prayer, speaking a message of mercy and love for the world. She received a set of prayers — the Divine Mercy Chaplet — and the request to have a feast day established to remind the Church of the mercy of God. St. Faustina died in 1938, on the cusp of war and in the midst of one of the most violent centuries in the history of the world.
Her story and her diaries began circulating in Poland and beyond. It quickly became apparent that this was a holy young women, and the cause for her canonization opened. In the year 2000, she was canonized by the first-ever Polish pope, St. John Paul II. On her canonization day, he established the second Sunday of Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday, “a perennial invitation to the Christian world to face, with confidence in divine benevolence, the difficulties and trials that mankind with experience in the years to come.”
Readings of the Week
Sunday: Acts 2:42-47/Ps 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24/1 Pt 1:3-9/Jn 20:19-31
Monday: Acts 4:23-31/Ps 2:1-3, 4-7a, 7b-9/Jn 3:1-8
Tuesday: Acts 4:32-37/Ps 93:1ab, 1cd-2, 5/Jn 3:7b-15
Wednesday: Acts 5:17-26/Ps 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9/Jn 3:16-21
Thursday: Acts 5:27-33/Ps 34:2 and 9, 17-18, 19-20/Jn 3:31-36
Friday: Acts 5:34-42/Ps 27:1, 4, 13-14/Jn 6:1-15
Saturday: Acts 6:1-7/Ps 33:1-2, 4-5, 18-19/Jn 6:16-21
Next Sunday: Acts 2:14, 22-33/Ps 16:1-2 and 5, 7-8, 9-10, 11/1 Pt 1:17-21/Lk 24:13-35
Celebrations of the Week
Sunday: Divine Mercy Sunday
Monday: Saint Martin I, Pope and Martyr
Next Sunday: Third Sunday of Easter
