Saturday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
Optional Memorial of Saint Paulinus of Nola, Bishop
Optional Memorial of Saint John Fisher, Bishop, and Saint Thomas More, Martyrs
Jesus said to His disciples:
Learn from the way the wildflowers grow.
Matthew’s gospel, chapters five and six which we’ve been looking at this week, presents a motif of patient trust in the care that God provides for us. Many of us Christians want spiritual progress right away, and, very often, on our terms. Lord, rid me of this sin, this baggage. Lord, grant me now faith large enough to move mountains. Father, help me to know and love Jesus.
These are good prayers.
Let us remember, though, that God is always at work in us, even if our patience may be thin or if we may not see that work or progress as clearly as we would like. Today, let us learn from the way the wildflowers grow, no faster or slower than each can or should – – they start from the seedling, spread by the wind, slowly are grounded and take root, begin to sprout and grow over periods of time, and eventually blossom, all of this with the slow, gentle care of God in his sunshine, shade, water, and nourishment. In our case, with His love, His grace, His mercy, His constancy, and all the rest.
Perhaps we might consider this prayer, attributed to Jesuit Paleontologist and Theologian, Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J., by way of entering into our weekend, our Sabbath Day tomorrow:
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability-
and that it may take a very long time.And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually-let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.