Even if a Mother were to forget. . .

In the face of any calamity or natural disaster, there is always someone who will argue there really was omnipotent divine being who loves us, that God would not allow things like school shootings or floods or any such evil thing. What they fail to understand is that God is not some insurance policy against all mishaps. To paraphrase a Country Western song, God never promised us a rose garden. God simply promised that we would never be abandoned. We would never be alone. God promised to be with us. To be sure, it sometimes feels like we have been abandoned. At times like those, we might be tempted to cry out with the words of Psalm 22 which Jesus used on the cross. “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?” If we were to go just a few more verses into the psalm, however, we would hear the psalmist reason, “In you our fathers trusted; they trusted and you rescued them. To you they cried out and they escaped; in you they trusted and were not disappointed.”

The first reading from Isaiah was written during the time of the Babylonian captivity. After a rhapsodic statement from God about what was about to happen, we hear the nay-sayers that God has forsaken them. The beautiful and often quoted image of a mother and child is God’s answer to such claims. God will be with us in the midst of every travail.

In answering those who criticized him for healing a paralytic at the pool of Bethesda, Jesus contends that just as the Father would never forsake us, he will never forsake us. He and the Father are one. What God does, Jesus does. What God promises, Jesus promises.

Even if we were the most abject sinner, God would not leave us alone. God’s grace cannot be imprisoned; it cannot be kept out of the cold, dark tombs of sinfulness. Even sin does not separate us from God. It is not in God’s nature to leave us alone.

Lent affords us the opportunity to remember all that God has done for us in the past and to look forward to what God will do for us in the future. Whenever we celebrate the Eucharist, we do so mindful of the promise that has been made - even should a mother forget, I will never forget you.

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator