Fr Marco Lazzaron
he Gospel of today shows us how God’s ways are often mysterious and we are asked to trust even when not everything is clear, just as Mary and Joseph did.
We hear today of the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt to protect the life of the little Jesus. In fact, an angel of the Lord had told Joseph in a dream that Herod was seeking the child to kill him. Herod, in his madness, had decided to have all the children in Bethlehem two years old and under killed. For this reason, in the Holy Family, another moment of joy was abruptly cut short. And so, they made their preparations without wasting time, heading toward a foreign and unknown land, far from everything familiar. There they would have to remain until a new word from God. The date of their return remained vague: “stay there until I tell you”. There was clarity—they would return—but God’s timing was hidden from Joseph. How long? All this carried the feeling of uncertainty, doubts, and many questions.
However, Joseph and Mary had a supernatural vision of the events unfolding—a kind of intelligence of the faith—through which they interpreted everything happening, even the less beautiful and darker things, in the light of the fulfilment of God’s plan. This is a great lesson for us. To be able to recognize, in a difficult moment—even one caused by human wickedness—the presence of God’s will, not as something foreign or indifferent to what is happening but as something always present.
With this trust that the Father never abandons us, we come to understand that every event, great or small, good or bad, is never a point beyond which nothing else can be done; rather, in God’s hands it becomes a link in a chain leading everything toward the best possible end—toward what God desires for our good, because “all things work together for good for those who love God” (cfr. Rom 8:28). We, on the other hand, always want things to go according to our expectations, and when they don’t, we get angry, discouraged, and think that God has forgotten us.
Instead, a trusting abandonment into the Father’s hands gives us peace—a hope that opens into the certainty that God guides history even through negative events, which are neither His work nor His will, but events that occur through the freedom of human beings, who can choose evil as well as good. “Let us not forget that for a child of God, above the storm that roars on the heights, the sun always shines; beneath the tumultuous and devastating surge of the waves, serenity and calm reign” (J. M. Escrivá).