Providence

Nil Inultum remanebit

Those of you who can read French can do much worse than reading Bossuet's “Sermon sur la Previdence”, available for free on your Kindle.

Like every good preacher, Bossuet can present old concepts in a new way, or at least in a way that entertains and attracts the listener, and remains in the consciousness a long time afterwards. Bossuet deals mercilessly with the mistakes born of our little faith, and asks how can we imagine that the One who made an entire Universe, and even ourselves in His image, can forget us and abandon us to our tests for even one second.

He also explains how very little it is to expect that if there is a God, this God should, for reasons not apparent to any sane person, let His justice operate with the same speed we poor little humans think we can demand as a “proof” of his existence. God operates in His own way and His justice rewards and strikes in his own time. If one believes that there is God, surely he does not expect that God starts reasoning like a human just in order for them not to have any doubt in His justice?

The contrary, says the author, is the case: God may allow the wicked to enjoy the earthly benefits of their wickedness for a very long time, content not only that He will have everything in His own way in the end, but also giving his “friends and servants” the opportunity to see His day coming from very far away.

Reading this sermon, one is helped to put the little and big (and bigger) problems of his life sub specie aeternatis, knowing even in the midst of oppression and abuse that the day of perfect justice is already written in Heaven, and everyone will see and acknowledge – in fact, even the damned – the Divine perfection of their, and everyone else's, treatment.

I know this is easier said than done, and I am far away from the author's eloquence. Still, these are the little concepts than everyone of us would do good to remember often, then the failure to truly meditate on them “because we know it already” will make us more vulnerable when life seems so unjust, and chances are in those moments we will easy forget what we thought we knew, or will discover we know the message, but don't really live it.

Again, the French version is much better than my poor explanation.

If you can read French, you will enjoy this booklet.

Mundabor