Each day until Divine Mercy Sunday on April 7th, I will email you one thought from that day’s brief reading from Fr. Michael Gaitley’s fine book, 33 Days to Merciful Love. I render full credit for these thoughts, respecting copyright laws, to Fr. Gaitley. Each reading ends with a prayer, which I ask you to pray with me for this intention: the conversion of our parish.
Day Twenty-One
Thérèse is a progressive. She looks forward to a better future, in fact, to a perfect world. “The Future” is what I see advertised in every billboard here in San Francisco. It’s always a better future, and Big Tech got its religious belief in a better future from … Thérèse of Lisieux (and other shapers of world culture), who got it from the Bible. “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future full of hope” (Jeremiah 29:11).
In today’s reading we consider the second part of her “Offering to Merciful Love,” which uses the future tense in every paragraph. “I hope to resemble You … I hope to enjoy You in the Fatherland … I shall appear before you … may my soul take its flight into the eternal embrace of Your Merciful Love.”
Built into our psyches is the hope for a better future, an end to present sufferings, a sure and certain happiness at last to attain. But Thérèse’s “future” is not a secure 401K, good health, and luxury hotels in exotic locations (for people over 40) or Google’s promise of a completely safe virtual world inside the internet, a “metaverse” with no worries (for people under 40). Thérèse’s hope is “the eternal possession of Yourself.” She only wants to return to the God who made her, even though she has no concrete idea of what that will look like. This is the future Christ offers: “I shall come back to you and take you to myself,” Jesus promised, but he didn’t say when or how. Thérèse trusts in that future, which is simply a personal relationship.
“In the evening of this life,” Thérèse writes, “I shall appear before You with empty hands.” Trusting entirely in God’s merciful love in this life, she looks forward to a “future full of hope.”
Prayer
Come, Holy Spirit, fire of mercy. Fill my heart with a deeper and deeper longing for God, even unto the martyrdom of love.
Day Twenty-One
Thérèse is a progressive. She looks forward to a better future, in fact, to a perfect world. “The Future” is what I see advertised in every billboard here in San Francisco. It’s always a better future, and Big Tech got its religious belief in a better future from … Thérèse of Lisieux (and other shapers of world culture), who got it from the Bible. “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future full of hope” (Jeremiah 29:11).
In today’s reading we consider the second part of her “Offering to Merciful Love,” which uses the future tense in every paragraph. “I hope to resemble You … I hope to enjoy You in the Fatherland … I shall appear before you … may my soul take its flight into the eternal embrace of Your Merciful Love.”
Built into our psyches is the hope for a better future, an end to present sufferings, a sure and certain happiness at last to attain. But Thérèse’s “future” is not a secure 401K, good health, and luxury hotels in exotic locations (for people over 40) or Google’s promise of a completely safe virtual world inside the internet, a “metaverse” with no worries (for people under 40). Thérèse’s hope is “the eternal possession of Yourself.” She only wants to return to the God who made her, even though she has no concrete idea of what that will look like. This is the future Christ offers: “I shall come back to you and take you to myself,” Jesus promised, but he didn’t say when or how. Thérèse trusts in that future, which is simply a personal relationship.
“In the evening of this life,” Thérèse writes, “I shall appear before You with empty hands.” Trusting entirely in God’s merciful love in this life, she looks forward to a “future full of hope.”
Prayer
Come, Holy Spirit, fire of mercy. Fill my heart with a deeper and deeper longing for God, even unto the martyrdom of love.
the metaverse. Photo credit: Scientific American
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