PART 2 of 4
FR. RAMON MA. LUZA BAUTISTA, SJ
Summary/Transcript by Teresita Tanseco-Cruz
The God of Intervention (God of the Eleventh Hour)
Non-believers or skeptics may think asking God for special favors or a specific miracle is strange, foolish, or superstitious. But asking God for a “miracle” in whatever context is simply asking God to intervene [“makailam”] in our human struggles or situation. Do we not say prayers of petition and intercession all the time? After all, He has said:” Ask and you shall receive.” ” Seek and you shall find.” “Knock and the door shall be opened to you.” And God will always answer our prayers, but He will answer us in His own way, in the light of His divine wisdom, and in His own time. God sees things in his infinite way, and we see things in our limited way. God will “make all things beautiful,” as the song says, but only “in His time.”
The story of Maria Goretti is an illustration of this.
Maria Goretti was an innocent 11-year old Italian girl when 18-year old Alessandro Serenelli tried to rape her. She thwarted his attempts, and the frustrated rapist stabbed her 14 times. As she lay dying in the hospital, Maria forgave Alessandro. In his 30 years of imprisonment that followed, Alessandro underwent a metanoia, a change of heart, a conversion. After emerging from prison, he sought forgiveness from Maria’s mother, who gave it readily.
In 1950, 48 years after Maria Goretti’s brutal death, she was canonized by Pope Pius Xll at St. Peter’s Basilica. Her mother Assunta and a transformed, deeply spiritual Alessandro Serenelli were present.
This story shows how God always answers our prayers, but in His way, in His time. One can imagine how Maria Goretti’s mother, in sorrow and agony, must have prayed to God. His answer came 48 years later, with Maria Goretti’s canonization and Alessandro’s conversion.
Forty-eight years may be long in human time, yes, but not so with the God of Intervention, who, indeed, makes all things beautiful in His time.
The term “eleventh hour” means the last possible moment for doing something significant, for carrying something consequential. In our present experience with this pandemic, it seems to be an apt description of how God appears to be biding His time, postponing His intervention, not doing too much to end this crisis quickly. In our limited human perspective, we may be tempted to ask:” Lord, what exactly are you waiting for?”
Some spiritual scholars might remind us to look into the Bible, at God’s word, at salvation history. Our God is a God of time and space because salvation history is of time and space. Look at the data of God’s word.
Have we forgotten? He FIRST allowed the storm to rage BEFORE He intervened, telling the winds to be quiet. He FIRST allowed the wine to run out BEFORE He intervened – turning water into the best wine. He FIRST allowed the multitude to be hungry – BEFORE He intervened -feeding them until all were satisfied. He FIRST allowed Lazarus to undergo death -BEFORE He intervened – raising him back to new life. He FIRST allowed Good Friday to unfold – before He intervened – making sure Easter Sunday will happen.
This makes us realize that our human sense of time is different from God’s own divine sense of time. Our God is working from the perspective of infinity, of forever. Most of us would find it hard to imagine infinity when we only know the human perspective of a lifetime of 75, 90, 100 years!
That is why from the time a problem or crisis arises, there will be the point of His intervention – those two points in the history of time. The crisis or chaos, and then – His explicit, direct intervention.
Between those two points is the waiting time – the period to wait most patiently. And for most of us, we find it difficult to wait between the crisis and the point of God’s direct intervention. We find it discouraging, disorienting.
That is why it is important to keep on believing, keep trusting even if things are not so clear, out of control, and far from secure. Why? Because we are within the waiting time.
This is where St. Joseph can be the excellent model of faith for all of us. He just kept placing his full confidence in the Lord because his heart was so humble, so pure, so meek that he knew how to trust; he knew how to believe. Because of that purity of heart, he understood God’s sense of time and God’s sense of timing.
Remember the beatitude ” Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.” Joseph, pure and humble of heart, could see God – in the period of waiting, as events were still unfolding.
This is so clear in Joseph’s Annunciation. He follows what the angel says – to take Mary as his wife despite her pregnancy. Later he again follows the angel and takes Mary and Jesus from Nazareth to Bethlehem, then to Egypt, and then back to Nazareth. Joseph just kept trusting, no matter the arduous journey, no matter the cost. In Joseph, we see a pattern of docility and humble obedience, just doing it again and again, taking the leap of faith with simplicity and constancy, not minding the high price or cost of following the Spirit’s lead in his life.
Joseph just kept believing in the mystery, that despite whatever unfolds, God is still in charge. The God of intervention, the God of the eleventh hour, is still in control.
Curiously, the name Joseph in Hebrew is Yosef, which literally means ” The Lord will add, the Lord increase.” The Lord will fill up. In Pilipino, ” Ang Panginoon ang magdaragdag, magpupuno.” Add to what? To whatever is lacking in us, in our efforts, and even in the situation or context we face.
Consider this extraordinary point: The patron of the whole Church is not a Pope or Cardinal, a bishop or priest. The patron of the universal Church is a layperson, St. Joseph. There is more. He is also Patron in many places – from the Americas to Europe to Asia, including the Philippines. He is the Patron of a Happy Death, Laborers, Travellers, Families, Unborn Children, even Pregnant Women!
Most significantly, he is the Patron of people who doubt and hesitate because he is precisely the opposite. He did not doubt nor hesitate to take that leap of faith, even if, many times, he did not understand why. What he did understand was God’s own sense of time and God’s own sense of timing.
How different we are! Often we want to comprehend what’s happening before we choose to believe and obey the Lord. St. Joseph was the man who understood God’s sense of time, the man who refused to doubt God, knowing that in the end, He is the God of intervention, the God of the eleventh hour.
PART 3 WILL CONTINUE ON TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 2021.