We are in the liturgical season named Ordinary Time. This time is the part of the liturgical year, which falls outside the two great seasons of Christmastide and Eastertide, or their respective preparatory seasons of Advent and Lent. This week we are in the Second Week of Ordinary Time.
I’ve got to believe that very few people would think of this week, or this time as ordinary. With Covid ramping up, inflation at new highs, shortages in stores, and a whole host of challenging events and situations before us, it is far from ordinary.
St. Francis de Sales has a helpful way of facing the challenges of the unordinary. He proposes that there are two expressions of God’s Will. One expression is the revealed will of God. That is, those things that we know are God’s Will as revealed in scripture and tradition. We see these expressed in the ten commandments, the challenges in the Gospels, or the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Francis names the second expression of God’s Will as the Will of God’s Good Pleasure. These are the things that are not expected. Sometimes these events or situations are welcome, a surprise party, an unexpected visit with a friend, and at other times, they are unwelcome, a Covid diagnosis, a job loss, etc.
I believe many of us would say we are living in the Will of God’s Good Pleasure in many ways right now. What do we do with this expression of God’s Will? How do we respond? Francis gives the advice: “Live one day at a time, leaving the rest in God's care…Go along with confidence in divine Providence, worrying only about the present day and leaving your heart in the Lord's care!” The past and the future are to be surrendered in confidence into the hands of the Lord, who will forgive our past failings and be our sure hope in the future. That leaves the present moment in which we are called to be actively united to God's Will for us.
De Sales would have us actively direct our intention to whatever God wants of us in the moment at hand. Francis has little time for people who live in “what might have been” or in “what might be.” The present moment provides the only real possibility for encounter with the living God through an active embrace of His Will for us. Seize it! And ask God’s help to live each moment in a manner pleasing to Him.
Fr. Jack Loughran, OSFS
Provincial
Toledo-Detroit Province
