CIRCUMSTANCES

CIRCUMSTANCES – Presentation of the Lord, Year C

            We need to give thought to the truth that where we are in our life was prepared for by others. They were probably about as aware of preparing for the people of the future as we are preparing for the people to come after us.

            Whenever we are and whatever position we are presently in, we have inherited a number of realities that have set up many of our present circumstances. What we do in our present circumstances will be inherited by whoever follows us into the set of circumstances. The good or the bad we find prepared for us by others knowingly, or unknowing, is very much a part of our present. What we do in our present set of circumstances will be passed on to others who follow us, and affect them.

            We need to be aware of what we have inherited on many different levels in our present set of circumstances, and be conscious of what we will leave behind for those who will come after us on many different levels. The world is made better by those who have a sense of improving on the present, and a responsibility for the future and those who will come after them. We can seek to work in good ways to leave whatever circumstances we have inherited better than when we found them for those who will follow us.

            Besides, and perhaps even more so, we need to be aware that the Lord is working in all circumstances, and the Lord uses people and circumstances for His own purposes. The sense that the Lord uses all circumstances and enters into all human circumstances is not the same as knowing exactly how the Lord does so. Many have prepared for some special event of the Lord in their life and have died long before it actually took place. What our more immediate family ancestors did several generations ago prepared our present life in many ways.

            The prophet Malachi spoke these words for the Lord: “Lo, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me.” The Lord’s coming always means a change in human life, and has to be prepared for. “But who will endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears?” The Old Testament peoples prepared for centuries for the coming of the Messiah.

            The Lord chose the right set of circumstances to send His Son into human life. “Surely He didn’t come to help angels, but rather the children of Abraham; therefore, He became like His brothers in every way.” Jesus entered human life and inherited the set of circumstances that had gone before Him. He certainly made life better for all who live their lives in the light of this inherited circumstance of human life, that God has become human. “Now, since the children are men of blood and flesh, Jesus likewise had a full share of these, that by His death, He might rob the devil, the prince of death, of his power, and free those who through fear of death had been slaves their whole life long.”

            The prophet Simeon and the prophetess Anna spent their whole lives waiting for the messiah to come, and to deliver the message to Mary and Joseph, and future generations, about Jesus. Their lives to the casual observer, or to someone unaware of God’s ways of preparing circumstances, and placing people where He wants them for some special work not even fully realized by them, probably didn’t make much sense. Both of them were described as waiting for “the consolation of Israel”. They were described also as having the Holy Spirit, spending time in prayer and worship.

            They had the power to look through ordinary and even contradictory sets of circumstances, and know that somehow the Lord was going to work in those circumstances, and what they did was preparatory to the Lord’s coming. They were ready to recognize Jesus the “revealing light to the Gentiles”, in their set of circumstances.

            Our present circumstances need to be viewed in the light of the past, lived in faith in the present, for the future known to God. We want to make our present set of circumstances better for those who come after us. And we especially want to be the Lord’s messengers preparing the circumstances for His coming into the lives of people.

Jesus’ Words from the Diary of St. Faustina (1578)

“The graces of My mercy are drawn by means of one vessel only, and that is – Trust. The more a soul trusts, the more it will receive.”