“The best laid schemes of mice and men”
By: Father Campbell
In today’s
Gospel we find some of
the most important words we shall ever hear:
“Amen,
amen, I
say to you, if you ask the Father anything in My name,
He will give it to you…
Ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full”
(Jn.16:23b,24b).
The
world has a different plan –
trust in money; your security is in your possessions;
build up a fat bank
account; invest in the stock market; invest in gold
because it never loses its
value. Well, such things are apt to
fail
very quickly, especially if you have been hoodwinked
into making bad
investments, such as investing in gold that isn’t really
there. Fortunes can be wiped out in
minutes, as when
the stock market plunges, as it does frequently enough.
In the Book of the
Apocalypse the merchants lament the fall of the great
city, Babylon, which
represents worldly wealth and commerce:
“Woe, woe,
the
great city, Babylon, the strong city, for in one hour has
thy judgment come!...
Woe, woe, the great city, wherein all who had their ships
at sea were made rich
out of her wealth; for in one hour she has been laid
waste!” (Apoc.18:10b;19b).
What
will be next, another Great
Depression, or will it be Martial Law? Many will be
unprepared since they are
living a “hand to mouth” existence as it is.
What are
they to do?
They tell
us
to pile up supplies of food and water, warm clothing,
first aid kits, sleeping
bags, etc.
The list is
long. Have plenty of gas for your car
or truck,
because you will want to get to a safe place.
But there
is no safe place if God is not there. And most of us don’t have a
country estate or
even a shack in the wilderness stocked with supplies to
which we can run if the
great crash comes.
It
may make sense to invest
wisely and to prepare for emergencies according to our
means. We don’t toss reason out the
window. But Our Lord didn’t think along
those lines.
God’s
thoughts are not our thoughts. This is the advice Jesus gave
us on one
occasion:
“Therefore
I
say to you, do not be anxious for your life, what you
shall eat; nor yet for
your body, what you shall put on… Look at the birds of
the air: they do not
sow, or reap, or gather into barns; yet your heavenly
Father feeds them. Are not you of much more value than they?...
Consider how the lilies of the field grow; they neither
toil nor spin, yet I
say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory was
arrayed like one of
these. But if God so clothes the grass
of the field, which flourishes today but tomorrow is
thrown into the oven, how
much more you, O you of little faith!
Therefore
do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or,
‘What
shall we drink?’ or, ‘What are we to put on?’ (for after
all these things the
gentiles seek); for your Father knows that you need all
these things.
But seek
first the kingdom of God and his
justice, and all these things shall be given you
besides. Therefore do not be anxious
about tomorrow;
for tomorrow will have anxieties of its own. Sufficient
for the day is its own
trouble” (Mt.6:25a,26,28b-34).
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| And Manna still falls from Heaven |
God
has always taken good care of
His people.
It was a
great wrong when
Joseph, son of Israel (Jacob), was sold into slavery in
Egypt by his envious
brothers. But God’s plan was at
work. Joseph gained the favor of the
Pharaoh and was appointed steward of his kingdom. Joseph stored up stockpiles of
grain during
seven years of plenty, and when that was followed by
seven years of famine,
Joseph was able to dole out emergency supplies to the
needy. The famine also struck Joseph’s
family, so
they came down to Egypt looking for help, never
suspecting that it would come
from their betrayed brother, Joseph.
Joseph
forgave them and brought the whole family including his
father,
Israel, to live in Egypt.
Years
later, when their
descendants had become slaves in Egypt, God brought them
out of Egypt under the
leadership of Moses. God sent them
manna, or bread from heaven (Ex.16:14), and quail
(Num.11:31-34), so that they
had plenty to eat. When they were in
need of water, God commanded Moses to strike the rock,
and streams of fresh
water gushed forth (Ex.17:2-7).
When the
wine ran out at the
marriage feast of Cana, Jesus changed six large jars of
water into the best of
wine at His Mother’s request (Jn.2:1-11).
When
the people were hungry after
Jesus taught them at length about the Kingdom of God,
not wanting them to faint
on the way home, He fed thousands of them by multiplying
five loaves and two
fish (all four gospels), and thousands more on another
occasion by multiplying
seven loves and a few fishes (Matthew and Mark).
When Peter
and his fellow
apostles fished all night and caught nothing, Jesus told
them to lower their
nets again for a catch, and their two boats were on the
point of sinking under
the load of the fish they netted (Lk.5:4-11).
God
takes care of His own. But there is no safe place for those who are
not God’s obedient servants, even though they make the
most elaborate
preparations by storing up supplies, building safe
refuges, and storing up guns
and ammunition to protect them. The best
laid plans can fail with the jolt of an earthquake, the
force of floods or
hurricanes, or bombs launched by an enemy.
We read in
the psalms:
“Unless
the
Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it.
Unless the Lord guard
the city, in vain does the guard keep vigil. It is vain
for you to rise early,
or put off your rest, you that eat hard-earned bread, for
he gives to his
beloved in sleep” (Ps.126 [127]).
We
should also ponder these words
from the prophet Isaiah:
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