Session 1: The Providence of God

Stillness
We will now enter a time of stillness…
The Bible tells us that Elijah did not hear God's voice in the noise of a mighty wind, in the crashing of an earthquake or in the crackling roar of a great fire. He encountered God in the calm of a gentle breeze…
Take a few moments to become physically and mentally still …
Fade out the 'noise' that surrounds you …
Set aside your preoccupations and worries …
Place them in God's hands …
Listen for God's voice …
Prepare yourself now, to hear a reading from St Paul's letter to the Romans.
Reading: Romans 8: 35, 37 - 39
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Reflection
· To hope is to become aware of God's providence shaping our lives and guiding us through the ups and downs that are part and parcel of everyone's life. Living as we do amid global terrorism, pervasive conflict, pandemics and ecological degradation - and, for thousands of people in different parts of the world, crushing poverty and unjust structures - there could hardly be a more consoling message than encouragement to hope in the providence of God. But, in practice, what does this mean for us? How does God 'provide' for us?
What is it that makes us hope for tangible marks of this providence - food when we're hungry, cures for our illnesses, comfort and care in our sufferings, shelter when we're homeless, employment when we're jobless - especially when we know from experience that we're often going to be disappointed?
How do we remain hopeful when this God we call provident seems deaf to our urgent pleas for demonstrable help?
· If we see God's providence as the backdrop of our lives, it is amazing how we can find small scraps of hope even in times of desperation and fear, seeds of wisdom even in unwanted experiences and unwelcome happenings. Does hope also mean believing in small, modest, 'everyday' miracles?
· If love is at the heart of divine providence, then perhaps the human evidence of that providence is our love for one another. In other words, it may be that God's way of providing for people in their need is to inspire us to be provident in our turn. Perhaps that is what we're all hoping for: that God's providence will be embodied in us.
· It could be said that here we have the essence of the spirit of the season of Lent: listening to God more attentively (prayer), choosing to do without what is superfluous in our lives, in order to seek a deeper understanding of our dependence upon God (fasting), and sharpening our practical concern for the poor and the weak (almsdeeds). When we do these things, we share God's provident desires by the way we care for one another while we wait in hope for the new life of Easter.
· Karl Rahner SJ was once asked whether he believed in miracles. He replied that he didn't believe in them, he counted on them to get through each day. Having a keen sense of divine providence in his life, he saw the finger of God in the apparently chance events, good and bad, that come to us all. To him, these everyday experiences were 'miracles' because they spoke to him of God's guiding presence in his life. For him, they were more than simply a conspiracy of accidents; they were a source of hope, of confidence in God's presence in his life. And hope is always miraculous.
Response
· How did you feel when you listened to the reading? …
· Do you share Paul's certainty that 'nothing can come between us and the love of Christ'? …
· Speak to God about this…
· Do you believe in 'everyday' miracles? …
· Would you use an image like 'the hand of God' to refer to certain experiences in your life? …
End thoughts
Hope embraces the whole of reality, and reality includes the true and the good, the faltering and the imperfect. When we do not know what we should hope for, the Spirit comes to help us in our weakness.
When the future is uncertain or unpredictable, we call on God, as we would call on a loving father or mother, to provide for us, and we hope for a favourable response. We hope for a better world, trusting in the faithfulness and loving kindness of God, and at the same time trying, for our part, to make this better, fairer world become a reality. And as we wait in hope for God's reign to come 'on earth as it is in heaven', we pray for justice, for peace, for healing, for courage.