Unearned Luck

Photo by Veri Ivanova on Unsplash So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority." -Acts 1:6-7 He has made everything beautiful in its time; also he has put eternity into man’s mind, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. -Ecclesiastes 3:11 This afternoon at Mass, Father began his homily on the need for patience with God by relating his recent frustrations trying to return from his three-day vacation in Colorado. In the end, he and his traveling companions drove seventeen hours to get home in time for him to say his Masses today. Traveling seventeen hours in a vehicle with three other people does require patience of a kind. The boon patience receives in this scenario is knowing that there will be no need for patience in seventeen ...

Photo by  Pietro Rancan  on  Unsplash Then came Am′alek and fought with Israel at Reph′idim. And Moses said to Joshua, “Choose for us men, and go out, fight with Am′alek; tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand.” -Exodus 17:8-9 Rightly, we think of God as all-powerful, but then we draw a false conclusion: God, therefore, should eradicate all evil or, at least, the evil we see in our own lives. Sacred Scripture, though, has a different understanding of the way in which God exercises His omnipotence. The battle of Amalek against Israel recorded in Exodus 17:8-13 provides a good understanding of how God wants us to fight evil. Amalek marches on Israel with the intention of killing every last one of them. The Israelites prayed for deliverance, but God did not snap His fingers and make Amalek and his army disappear. No. God fully expected the Israelite army to march out of their camp and fight Amalek's army to t...