Church of Jesus Christ of the Universe

By Mauro

8 September 2023

Rom 8, 28-30; Ps 12; Mt 1, 1-16. 18-23

If we approach today’s Readings of September 8, Nativity of Mary, with faith, simplicity, trust, and the unwavering knowledge of the One to whom we have offered our life, recognising that our life is firmly in God’s hands; if we have faith in the One who guides our life without questioning how He does it, but seeking to understand the message God gives us in every circumstance; if we discern what actions to take and what to let go of (while ensuring that our self-offering, our identity and our confidence in being held by God remain unshaken) then, we can see that these Readings confirm these principles.

Saint Paul said to the Romans: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”[1] In all things, God works for the good. This means that nothing bad can happen to us, that there is no evil. I will say it more clearly: evil exists, but it cannot do The evil to us, which is to lose our soul. He may take away our body, but not our soul; anything can happen to us, but “in all things God works for the good of those who love him.”

“For those God foreknew …”[2] If we have offered our life to God, we know that the desire to offer it to Him comes from God, who placed it into our heart. No one can offer his life to God out of his own strength. It is a desire that God puts in our heart, otherwise, none of us has this desire, and thus no one offers his life. That desire comes from our ‘yes’ to God at conception. With our ‘yes’ we have accepted what our life and our identity will be; then, the Father entrusted us to the Son, and the Son has given us the Holy Spirit who instructs us. In the Holy Spirit, we offer our life, but it is always based on the action of God. Therefore, He foreknew us. “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”[3]

It is all a journey in which everything contributes to the good, and the path is to reach the image of the Son of God within us; this means that we too are children of God. You will reply, “This seems too easy”, but this is how God thinks. The difficult part is to remain firm in this faith throughout life, in everything that happens to us, surrendering to God by holding His hand; He knows how to guide us, “I don’t know, but He does”. Thus, we recognise everything that holds that image of God, the path that God has placed within us and for us. I am not talking about helping others, about communion or about offering ourselves for the other, because you know these things.

Let us look at the example of someone who was like this: Saint Joseph, in today’s Gospel.[4] It was too sublime a thing for him to understand the pregnancy of Mary Most Holy by the work of the Holy Spirit. Not even Saint Joseph could understand it at that moment. However, as a son of God, as a Just man, he knew that everything contributed to the good, and he simply though, “I will divorce her in secret so that they do not harm her.” [5] Then, God intervened, and Joseph accepted it. This was how Mary and Joseph’s whole life was; it is easy to say that Jesus was led in this way since He was God, but Holy Mary and Saint Joseph were also guided in this way by God. God has also promised us to guide us, each of us and all together in the same way, and the whole Church of Jesus Christ with all her instruments is with us and accompanies us. The central point is to have the same willingness that Mary and Joseph had.

A wrong way to interpret St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans is to think, “I am righteous, I am chosen, I am predestined, I am a priest, I am anointed.” Whoever thinks like this is already lost. I indeed know that I am anointed and that I am a priest, but I must be aware that without the help of God and my brothers and sisters, without the readiness to let myself be shaped and transformed, without allowing God to remove my own thoughts, they will almost always be the opposite of His. All this can only happen if I know that everything is possible for God and that everything contributes to the good, be it sickness, death, misfortune, famine or pestilence. Everything contributes to the good for those who love God and let themselves be loved.

[1] See Rom 8, 28

[2] See Rom 8, 29

[3] See Rom 8, 29-30

[4] See Mt 1,1-16.18-23

[5] See Mt 1, 19