Reflections from the Heart – April 14, 2024

Third Sunday of Easter
by Fr. Ivan Olmo

“Lord Jesus, open the Scriptures to us; make our hearts burn while you speak to us.”   From time to time, I cannot help but think about and meditate on the helplessness of God.  Don’t you wonder sometimes how our covenant Lord who is God – Creator, Master, and Teacher, can and does create from nothing and does not need anything or anyone but is helplessly in love with you?  God cannot help but love us.  It is who he is and he cannot deny himself for love helplessly seeks the good of the other. Because the Father eternally loves us so much, he remains patiently helpless as we continue to make terribly bad decisions that are at times extremely detrimental to our health, very hurtful and destructive to ourselves and are unmercifully unkind to others. God patiently watches and listens for his children.  He remains constant in prayer and with an eternal patience, waits for one of his needy children to seek his help or ask for his guidance so that we can openly and prayerfully discern our situation and, in a spirit of prayer with God, make the best possible decision.  With the help of God’s grace, his spiritual direction and trustworthy counsel, we can experience the achievement of the best possible outcome to our situation by relying and depending solely and only on God, who is always reliable and dependable, and not rely on another or even relying on ourselves who are, at best unreliable and cannot really help us. I contemplate how we render God, our most faithful heavenly Father powerless. How in his great love for his beloved children and all of his beloved creation, God cannot help but want to help us and come immediately to our aid when we cry out and scream aloud for help.  Nevertheless, unfortunately, we do not cry out, call out or come to God in a spirit of prayer for his unwavering support and assistance but rather we talk to ourselves, or cry out to an innocent bystander or even yell at the enemy who does not really care or want to help you.  Rather than crying out aloud from the depths of our limited wavering faith, and perhaps even from the core of our own helplessness, and saying to our Merciful Father, “God, come to my assistance.  Lord, make haste to help me,” we attempt to resolve our difficult problems without God’s help. Rather than trusting and depending on the power of God’s word, we render God powerless, helplessly waiting for someone to pray.