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April 10, 2014
Scripture readings: Jeremiah 20:10-13; Psalm 18; John 10:31-42
“The breakers of death surged round about me, the destroying floods overwhelmed me; the cords of the nether world enmeshed me, the snares of death overtook me. In my distress I called upon the Lord and cried out to my God; from his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears” (Psalm 18:5-7).I’m not sure who the psalmist was who wrote those words, but we have all been there. We have all had those feelings. And maybe we have all had the joy of knowing our cry has reached the ears of the Father.
Maybe our situation has not changed, but we know God is aware of us. That is the gift of faith.
St. Thomas Aquinas says faith is “the act of the intellect assenting to a divine truth owing to the movement of the will, which is itself moved by the grace of God.”
Just as faith is a gift supernaturally bestowed upon the understanding, so too this divine grace moving the will is an equally supernatural and an absolutely gratuitous gift. Neither gift is due to previous study, and neither of them can be acquired by human effort. But “Ask, and you shall receive” (Matthew 7:7).
Rev. Thomas Siconolfi, C.Ss.R.
Timonium, Md.