Contemplata Episode 37 | God's Plan for You | Fr. James Brent, O.P.

Very often it doesn’t seem like God has a plan. It can feel like everything is going wrong. But we need to remember—God has a plan for the whole world, and for each of us personally.

St. Paul called God’s plan “the mystery.” Through Scripture, he was authorized by God to reveal this secret plan, hidden in God’s heart since the beginning of the world. What has been revealed is that God’s plan is Jesus Christ. In Him, we are drawn into the Mystical Body of Christ, guided by the Holy Spirit, and invited to live according to God’s eternal wisdom and love.

Episode 37 Transcript

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So we need to remember today. Like we need to remember every day. God has a plan. And he said he was for me. Brothers and sisters, welcome back to contemplate a podcast for contemplative Souls. Very early on in our podcast, we made the point that God is always working for the recovery of the eyes of our hearts.

 

00:00:25:06 – 00:00:49:24

He wants us to come and know him, and he gives us his grace. The grace of the Holy Spirit, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that you and I can come to know the living God, the true God, in a very familiar way, in a very personal way, in the depths of our hearts, so that we can come into his presence, live in his presence, and walk in his presence.

 

00:00:49:26 – 00:01:19:20

And early on, we said that there are three ways that you and I can go about receiving this renewal, this recovery of the eyes of our hearts in the first place. There’s faith and listening to the Word of God in Scripture. Second, there’s prayer calling upon the name of the Lord Jesus and asking for his help all the day and asking God to send the spirit of truth into the world, praying in a special way.

 

00:01:19:23 – 00:01:46:23

The Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And then, of course, there’s the great means God has given us for the sanctification of our souls and for the recovery of the knowledge of him. And that is the Eucharist, the great sacrament the Lord has instituted in the church the sacrament of his Body and blood, so that he can be our food, the food of eternal wisdom.

 

00:01:46:25 – 00:02:30:03

When you and I receive Holy Communion, we eat wisdom, the wisdom of the Most High God in person, Jesus Christ himself. And over the course of this podcast, first of all, we went through a series of episodes on the Eucharist. Then we went through a series of episodes on prayer. But today we’re going to begin a whole new series of episodes on Scripture, on the wonders of listening to the Word of God, listening to God himself speak to us in Sacred Scripture, believing in His Word in the depths of our hearts, and feeding on His Word, meditating on His Word.

 

00:02:30:06 – 00:03:00:21

And His word is powerful, and His Word will sanctify us, renew us, cleanse our hearts, and lift us up to him so that we can know him more and more and more. The Word of God is very powerful that way. So where shall we begin our meditations on Sacred Scripture? Let’s begin with a verse from the letter of Saint Paul to the Ephesians, chapter three verse eight.

 

00:03:00:24 – 00:03:36:16

Saint Paul says this to me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things. It’s a powerful passage. Saint Paul connects three things the plan of God, the mystery, and Jesus Christ.

 

00:03:36:18 – 00:04:12:22

Let’s think about each of these three things. First of all, God has a plan. Such a simple, central truths is so important for us to keep before our mind’s eye at all times. God has a plan. He has a plan for our whole world. He has a plan for you and for me. We can get a certain glimpse of the plan of God just by looking at the world of nature around us the sun, the moon, the stars, the cycle of the sunrise and sunset, and the beauties of the sunrise and sunset.

 

00:04:12:22 – 00:04:45:14

They reveal something of the plan of God, but so do the cycle of the seasons and the way that our lives move in this world, the way that down through the generations, male and female mate, fall in love, get married, have children, raise children, and the cycle repeats itself all over again down through the next generation. It’s a wonderful thing to see the order that God has written into the world all around us, and a certain order in human life too.

 

00:04:45:17 – 00:05:27:21

But very often it doesn’t seem like God has a plan. Very often when we look around our lives and look around our world, it seems like anything but a wisely fashioned, well run plan of God that’s unfolding. It can seem to us very confusing. It can seem like everything is going wrong, especially if we run into things like health issues and financial issues and difficulties and families and difficulties in our relationships with people or disappointments that set into our lives and things that we’re hoping for don’t come to pass and troubles come, come down upon us when things get very difficult.

 

00:05:27:21 – 00:05:52:09

And when we enter into times of trial, when we’re in the midst of great suffering and sorrow, then we can really begin to wonder and even forget. God has a plan. So we need to remember today like we need to remember every day. God has a plan. He has a plan for our whole world, and he has a plan for you and for me.

 

00:05:52:11 – 00:06:22:14

It’s a good plan. It’s a plan of eternal wisdom and love. But this plan is very mysterious. It’s beyond our fathoming. You and I cannot grasp it. It’s more than we can possibly understand. It is in a way, God’s secret, or at least much of it. Most of it is God’s secret. And for this reason, Saint Paul called the plan of God simply the mystery.

 

00:06:22:16 – 00:07:01:10

The mystery is just another word for the great plan God has for the entire world. For each person in particular. And that means his plan for you and for me. It’s a secret. It’s a mystery for the most part. But the great message Saint Paul is authorized by God to bring to the world the grace he has been given is the grace to announce to the world what is the secret plan of God hidden in the heart of God, so to speak, from before the foundation of the world.

 

00:07:01:13 – 00:07:52:05

Saint Paul says he has received a revelation of the plan of God, the mystery hidden from before the foundation of the world. And what has been revealed is that the plan of God is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is God’s plan for the world. God created this world. He created the wonders of nature. He created the human race, and he created you and me in order to gather us, to draw us, to summon us into the one mystical body of Jesus Christ, to unite us in him by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that the human race is no longer simply a collection of individuals running to and fro with all sorts of chaos and

 

00:07:52:05 – 00:08:18:08

difficulties and disturbances all around us, but know there’s a deeper meaning under the surface, under the surface of the the hustle and bustle of daily life, under the surface of the to and fro, and a world that seems to be moving in many different directions underneath the pain and the sorrow and the suffering and the struggles and the trials and the burdens that are on us, one and all.

 

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There’s a deeper meaning. There’s a higher purpose. There’s a mysterious plan of God that’s unfolding. And the plan is to unite us all into Jesus Christ, into the mystical body of Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that you and I can actually come to live the life of the risen Lord Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

00:08:43:29 – 00:09:06:08

And in the risen Lord Jesus, you and I can look to God the Father and come to know his love for us, to know his love for each one of us personally. This plan comes to fulfillment in our lives in various stages and degrees. It’s a gradual process, the way it is fulfilled in your life and in mine.

 

00:09:06:10 – 00:09:38:05

We can say in a serious way that it begins in baptism. That’s when you and I are really united with Christ by the grace he has given to us. You and I enter into the Mystical Body of Christ, and the plan of God comes to fulfillment. One more step, and each person who is baptized. And then as you and I grow in the spiritual life, each time we receive Holy Communion, each time we pick up Scripture and read, each time we pray to the Most High God for new graces.

 

00:09:38:12 – 00:10:22:03

Each time we carry out works of mercy and love in the world, we grow in grace a little bit more. The plan of God comes to fulfillment a little bit more in your life and in mine. And when we become aware that the plan of God is real, it’s mysterious. It’s the great mystery of the world, the mystery of Christ, you and I can start to realize that even our sufferings, even our trials, even our burdens, even the sorrows that we go through, can be brought into the great work of God, the part of his plan for our transformation in Christ, the part of how we become one with Christ crucified and walk with him

 

00:10:22:06 – 00:10:46:29

through the cross into a new life and come to know the Most High God. It takes faith to believe this, though, but let us take our mind’s eye, every one of us, and begin to focus on the mystery of God, the great plan of God, hidden in one way in the mind of God, but revealed in another way.

 

00:10:47:02 – 00:11:12:21

And the person of Jesus Christ. The more you and I focus our attention on the mystery and remember the great plan of God and consider Jesus Christ, the more you and I will be able to live in to the fulfillment of this plan more and more all our days. So what’s the proper response to all of this? Let us look at Jesus.

 

00:11:12:24 – 00:11:44:13

Let us believe in Jesus. Let us put our trust in Jesus. Let us remember Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead. Let us meditate on Jesus and let us ask Jesus to come into our lives and to lead us by the power of His Holy Spirit more and more, and to the fulfillment of God’s plan for the world to lead us to him, to Jesus, and in him to the father’s house.

 

00:11:44:15 – 00:12:00:17

Thank you for listening to this episode of Content Florida. Be sure to like and subscribe and share with your friends wherever you listen to podcasts. 

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