The book we read for book club last month was He Leadeth Me by Fr. Walter Ciszek. I did not print a notes pdf for this study unfortunately but have been mulling over different passages, particularly relevant during the Easter season. This book moved along at a snail's pace. It hit me – like the proverbial ton of bricks – that this was a huge metaphor for spiritual enlightenment. So slow. So painfully slow. And when you finally get a glimpse, you realize it was there all along. Simple, obvious perhaps. Convicting to your very core.
The whole message boiled down to the Cross and the will of God. He reflects over and over on how very often God strips us of all those things we come to rely on for our peace of mind and security – our routines, the familiar things in our lives, our own abilities – and brings us face to face with Himself. This can be terrifying, quite honestly.
“We go along, taking for granted that tomorrow will be very much like today, comfortable in the world we have created for ourselves, secure in the established order we have learned to live with, however imperfect it may be, and give little thought to God at all. Somehow, then, God must contrive to break through those routines of ours and remind us once again, like Israel, that we are ultimately dependent only upon him, that he has made us and destined us for life with him through all eternity, that the things of this world and this world itself are not our lasting city, that his we are and that we must look to him and turn to him in everything. Then it is, perhaps, that he must allow our whole world to be turned upside down in order to remind us it is not our permanent abode or final destiny"
There are those who have suggested that a sure sign of being in God's good graces is material blessing and great good fortune. I will submit that the witness of the martyrs and the saints says otherwise. It will very often present as an unraveling of all earthly stability, gradually leading us to rely on God alone. That can be a hard sell, to be sure.
Lest we go there in our minds he is quick to assure that God is not vindictive. The falling is on us., on our human weakness. He is an economical God, however, and will make good use of every mistake, every misstep:
“Mysteriously, God in his providence must make use of our tragedies to remind our fallen human nature of his presence and his love, of the constancy of his concern and care for us. It is not vindictiveness on his part; he does not send us tragedies to punish us for having so long forgotten him. The failing is on our part.”
He also reassures us that the will of God is not all that mysterious nor "out there" someplace. It is right before us in each circumstance we find ourselves in day by day:
"…things suddenly seemed so very simple. There was but a single vision, God, who was all in all; there was but one will that directed all things, God's will.
I had only to see it, to discern it in every circumstance in which I found myself, and let myself be ruled by it.
God is in all things, sustains all things, directs all things.
To discern this in every situation and circumstance, to see His will in all things, was to accept each circumstance and situation and let oneself be borne along in perfect confidence and trust."
This has become the lesson of this Easter season.
Starry Sky Journal 