The God Who Acts

God is He Who Is;

Catherine is she who is not.

(--from the writings of Catherine of Siena)

One thing we can know for sure about God is that He is the One Who Acts -- and Who Acts on behalf of those who love Him.  Someone once wrote:  God, it seems to me, is a Verb.

If we believe in God at all, we must believe that He is at this very moment acting on our behalf.  He cannot do otherwise.  And if He is acting on our behalf, we can trust Him. 

His first Act on our behalf was the great and perfect work of creation, which we do not have to travel to observe, but which we see the moment we open our door to glance out.  There we can see the whole work of God within the scope of our vision. 

In Jesus Christ, through whom and for whom the world was made, the work of God and the work of man were perfectly united.  In surrendering His will to the will of His Father, Jesus allowed the Father to continue His perfect work in the souls and minds and bodies of all mankind.  Those who felt abandoned by God --- the woman married 5 times, the leper, the blind, the lame, the deaf -- those who had indeed been abandoned by society --- were found and touched by the love of God given to man in Jesus Christ.

If our own work is to unite with the work of God, then we must enter into His great work on behalf of those whom He loves and who love Him also.  In the 6th chapter of John, the Jews ask Jesus, "What must we do to do the work of God?"  Jesus replied, "This is the work of God: to believe in the One He has sent."

One writer has put it this way:  Our God is infinitely liberal, and His hands are always full of graces which He only desires to pour out on us (de Caussade: Abandonment to Divine Providence).  Once we know that God has touched us, that He has acted on our behalf, we too must turn and act on the behalf of others around us.  How we do this can be directed only by the Spirit of God, who gives different gifts to the Body of Christ, which continues today to act in the world.

If we look around us, we cannot fail to see the great acts of God continuing today:  the lame walk, the deaf hear, the poor have the Good News preached to them.  The work of God, the work of Jesus, continues today through those who cling to Him, who have themselves been rescued from the power of darkness and evil.