This week we Lectio the Liturgy with the Collect for the Fifth Sunday of Easter.
Almighty ever-living God, constantly accomplish the Paschal Mystery within us, that those you were pleased to make new in Holy Baptism may, under your protective care, bear much fruit and come to the joys of life eternal. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the petition of this prayer, that God would constantly accomplish the Paschal Mystery within us. The Paschal Mystery is the work that Jesus did to save us, his Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension. Because of the Paschal Mystery, the work of Jesus, we can come to joys of life eternal.
God’s work begins in us when we are baptized. The Catechism of the Catholic Church 1265 teaches us that “Baptism not only purifies from all sins, but also makes the neophyte ‘a new creature,’ an adopted son of God, who has become a ‘partaker of the divine nature,’ member of Christ and coheir with him, and a temple of the Holy Spirit.”
The pouring of water, or the immersion, of the one being baptized is a symbol of the death Jesus. In the pouring, we die to ourselves and to sin. We are freed from original sin, a sin we inherit, not one we commit. When we come up from the water, we rise as a new creation. We no longer belong to the kingdom of darkness, we are God’s children, co-heirs with Jesus, and God’s very life, the Holy Spirit dwells in us and it is now up to us to cooperate with the grace of God so that we can bear fruit and have eternal life.
I’ve been taking some online classes and a few weeks ago I posed this question to our instructor: “Garrigou-Lagrange writes, ‘all that happens has been foreseen and willed (or at least permitted) in advance by a providential decree…’ Is there a line between ‘It was God’s will that happened’ and where things are just trivial? For example, is it really God’s will if I miss the exit off the interstate? Sometimes it seems like “It’s God’s will” just becomes an excuse.”
Have you ever felt that way, too? For example, is every little thing that happens to us something that God wills for us? Or, are some things just a moment of clumsiness or forgetfulness?
My instructor’s response is still on my mind. He said that who made something happen is less important than the why, because if we are willing to cooperate with HIs grace, God will use everything that happens to bring about our salvation.
That is how He accomplishes the Paschal Mystery within us. If you have small children, take care of elderly family, have streaks of clumsiness, own a business, work for a business, if you’re retired, or if you experience anything in the plethora of things that happen in daily life, know that God is using what you’re going through. He is using it to make you holy.
Perhaps making you holy is part of His protective care for you. Perhaps the fruit you will bear will become nourishment and refreshment for those around you. Perhaps God will use you to help accomplish the Paschal Mystery in others and all of it is possible because within us, within each one of us, God is at work.