Despite COVID-19 Threat… Texas’ Mission Of Divine Mercy Asks For Trust In God
By DEXTER DUGGAN
The leader of a monastery of religious contemplatives in the hill country of rural Texas that offers on-site retreats for laypeople urges that the world trust in God during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The motto of the Mission of Divine Mercy (MDM) is “Faith, so that God can act.” The mission recalls Jesus’ messages of trust and mercy revealed to the twentieth-century Polish nun Sr. Faustina Kowalska, who was canonized on April 30, 2000, by Polish-born Pope John Paul II.
That Pope instituted the Feast of Divine Mercy on the Sunday after Easter, with a novena devotion leading up to it beginning on Good Friday. Further information about this observance and the conditions for the special indulgence that can be obtained is at various sites including divinemercydev
otion.net.
The Texas MDM sends an inspirational weekly email on Fridays. Recently it announced daily messages of faith and trust. The website is missionofdivinemercy.org.
The March 31 daily message was: “God is God: all-powerful, all-present, all-knowing. No one can add anything to these attributes. But He is also LOVE, and LOVE ‘needs’ to be poured out into someone. He needs, He is hungry for union with someone — and that someone is you. His love goes out to you to fill you, in order to bring you back and unite you to Him forever.”
The mission is located near New Braunfels, Texas, with San Antonio to the southwest and the state capital of Austin to the northeast.
Fr. John Mary Foster, whose title is guardian of the Mission of Divine Mercy, offered the weekly reflection “God has not left His children bereft” just before the Fifth Sunday of Lent. The rest of this article is a large portion of that reflection.
+ + +
Yes, we are living through times of great uncertainty. And for many, times of great trials and suffering. Yet, in the midst of the darkness, I have a sense of hopeful expectation. As I said, of Holy Saturday, I sense that, in the midst of this darkness, the dawn of His Light and Mercy is drawing near.
I am writing this message on the great Feast of the Annunciation to Our Blessed Mother, and of the Incarnation of Our Lord. This feast has deep significance for MDM, and it is the perfect example of our charism: Faith, so that God can act.
We might often feel that we have to work to get God’s attention. And that we need to convince Him to act. And then we need to bargain with Him, “Lord, if you do this, I will pray 100 rosaries and fast for a month.” The pagans used to feel that they had to flatter and even offer human sacrifice to get the gods to respond.
But what does “Faith, so that God can act” mean? It means God wants to act. He wants to act much more than we want Him to act. So the problem is not convincing Him to act. It is removing obstacles so that He can act. And what is that obstacle? It’s our lack of faith.
In our day-to-day living we know how important trust is. It is a necessity if there is to be unity, communion. Conversely, distrust erects a huge barrier. Well, our distrust of God can create a big obstacle to God’s action within us. By our act of faith, we remove that obstacle. We open the door.
What would happen if there was someone who opened the door completely? Who trusted totally? That is what we see in the Annunciation. By her humility, and faith and obedience, Mary opened the door completely. “Blessed is she who believed, that what was spoken to her by the Lord would be fulfilled”. . . .
Since the sin of Adam and Eve, God has been “dying” to be back with us. Finally, in Our Blessed Mother, He is able to act with complete freedom. And what does He want to do? Not impose Himself, but give Himself.
This gives us a very different sense of God. He is not someone who needs to be convinced to come help us. He is at the very door of our heart — knocking even — waiting for us to open to Him.