Hab 1:2-3;2:2-4
How long, Lord, am I to cry for help while you will not listen; to cry, ‘Violence!’ in your ear while you will not save? Why do you make me see wrong-doing, why do you countenance oppression? Plundering and violence confront me, contention and discord flourish. Then the Lord answered me and said, ‘Write the vision down, inscribe it on tablets to be easily read. For the vision is for its appointed time, it hastens towards its end and it will not lie; although it may take some time, wait for it, for come it certainly will before too long. ‘You see, anyone whose heart is not upright will succumb, but the upright will live through faithfulness.’
Today’s reading has a link with last week’s meditations on the story of Job. The question that the prophet addresses to God could be paraphrased in these terms: How is it possible that you do not answer my prayers and do not intervene, when there is so much misfortune around me?
Undoubtedly, it is a question that many people carry within them and some may even be driven to despair. Often we do not find an immediate answer to this question: Why does God allow evil to exist in the world? Why does He allow darkness to spread? Not infrequently His motives remain veiled from our understanding, at least temporarily.
However, God’s promises will be fulfilled, even if they seem to take time. This certainty will teach us to be very careful in exploring the concrete time in which this or that prophecy will come to fulfillment.
The Lord’s apparent “delays” are not a sign that His promises are unreliable; they point to something else. God has the time in His hands and will carry out His plans when the precise moment has arrived. He alone is capable of knowing all the circumstances, integrating them into His action.
This in no way means that we should cease to offer resistance to evil and endure everything in an attitude of fatalistic resignation, because, after all, the Lord will one day deliver us from all evils. On the contrary, God Himself exhorts us to cooperate in His plan of salvation and we, with our prayer and sacrifice, can make sure that the threats that loom over humanity are shortened – or perhaps even prevented.
In any case, we continue with unshakable confidence in God, because what He has announced to mankind will be fulfilled. Evil will not last forever and we must not allow ourselves to be confused by its existence. Let us cling to God and to the truth, despite all that is happening around us and all the aberrations that we have to discover.
There is no doubt that we live in an age of confusion and darkness, which has penetrated even into our Church. This calls us to cling with even greater fidelity and perseverance to the Gospel and to the authentic doctrine of the Church, without embarking on courses that lead us away from God and His truth.
Let us not forget to pray intensely that the Lord may protect and free His Church from the influence of darkness, so that she may fulfill her mission without impediment, which consists of proclaiming to all the message of salvation without ambiguity or adulteration.
Today’s reading assures us that “the just shall live by his faithfulness”: faithfulness will triumph, because it is faithfulness to the One who is always faithful!
In the letter to the angel of the church of Smyrna, the Lord says: “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Rev 2:10).
If it were not for the fact that Sunday has priority at the liturgical level, today, October 2, we would be celebrating the memorial of the holy guardian angels. We would therefore like to conclude this meditation with some reflections of Bishop Athanasius Schneider on the Guardian Angel, who will certainly help us with great fervor to remain faithful to the Lord…
“Each of the baptized has a unique guardian angel, who has never served as guardian to anyone else. God is so lavish with His gifts that He chose an angel from all eternity to be, only once, the guardian angel for a specific person, even if this person lives for only one instant here on earth.
So “my guardian angel was given only for me, and he is a very powerful spiritual being who is always in the presence of God, and who remained faithful to God during the trial of the angels, when some of his brother angels apostatized with Lucifer.
the most fervent desire of every angel is one day to become a humble servant guardian angel of a human being. Every angel ardently desires this. The career ambition of every angel is to bow down. His “dream career” is to be little, to descend, and not to ascend like men in their career ambition.
When I love my guardian angel (…), I will be more conscious of his presence and, in his presence, I will not dare to offend God. It is a help for me to meditate on this and to ask him, saying: “Oh my guardian angel, when I am in danger of offending the Lord, please give me a very strong reminder.”
In fact, the guardian angel “protects us in our physical needs and in our travels, and from accidents and so on. But especially from accidents of the soul.
Once the person entrusted to him reaches heaven, they will be together for all eternity.”
