Wednesday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time
The Assyrians, after achieving a major military victory in 722 B.C., were warned by the prophet Isaiah not to become too proud. “Will the axe boast against him who hews with it? Will the saw exalt itself above him who wields it?” (Isaiah 10:15). The Assyrians were merely instruments under the control of forces much greater than they could understand, and despite their military power, their end was in sight, as Isaiah foretold: “I will punish the utterance of the king of Assyria’s proud heart, and the boastfulness of his haughty eyes” (Isaiah 10:12).
All of us are merely instruments in God’s hands, like a saw or an axe, used for a time upon this Earth, and then gone. Seeing things this way helps us to overcome the tendency to inflate our own importance. St. Bernadette saw herself as a broom in God’s hands. Mother Theresa saw herself as God’s little pencil. St. Ignatius Loyola trained the Jesuits to see themselves as a staff in an old man’s hand, at peace with whatever task may be chosen for them. The goal is a kind of interior indifference. Although we will strive earnestly for great accomplishments, inwardly, we accept that success and failure lie in God’s hands and may be selected as befits his loving providence. It must be as God chooses.