Fr Peter Helman

“I cannot know what lies ahead for me, for us, but more and more I realize God wants me to put myself in his hands, and let him take me through the things that are to come, and I must learn to trust him without fear, or questions, or hesitation or withdrawal.” (Thomas Merton, Entering the Silence: the Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume Two, 1941-1952)

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Who’s to say where God will lead us? I cherish what the apostle Paul wrote in his first letter to the churches of Corinth: “Things that eye has not seen and that ear has not heard and that have not risen up upon the heart of a human being, whatsoever God has prepared for those who love him” (2:9). Unable to know even the number of our days and what may come along the road, we rest our weary and anxious and so often distracted souls in the stability of God’s promises. Although the road is clouded with unknowing, we know this:

God calls each of us by name (how wondrous a claim!).

In Christ, we are made children of God. Through Christ, we are members one of another, made a new community of love. We are partakers, by Christ’s initiative, of a mystery hidden from the ages and throughout the generations and now revealed in our hearts: we bear in our bodies the hope of Glory, Christ within us. Together, we are a pilgrim people, and happy are they whose hearts are set on the pilgrim’s way.

The road is difficult and affords no promise of security and comfort. Remember what Christ said: “I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world, you will have trouble. But take courage; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

We do not possess the world.

We do not possess Christ, who is our life, as if we had strength enough (even on our best days!) to make him our own, but we are possessed by Christ and made his own possession forever. And this is the very brightness of the good news. Nothing will separate us from God’s love. Our lives, as the apostle Paul writes elsewhere, are for all time and eternity hidden with Christ in God. And in this life we are being transformed from glory to glory. We are loved into the people God intends us to be. And that love accomplishes within us more than a mere adjustment of perspective. We are clothed with Christ. We are adorned with a new nature and given new eyes with which to see the world. Whatever may come we are assured of the promise of God to be upheld and to make us his own forever. And so we cast aside every weight of fear because there is no need to fear.

May God bless you today and make known the reality of his love that directs your steps, even when the path is obscure and unknown.


In Christ,
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