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Wednesday 2 July 2014

Perfection Series II: Providence


Garrigou-Lagrange may be the greatest Thomist of the 20th Century. His book, Providence, must be read. I have referred to it about a month ago, and there are too many superb passages to go through the entire book.

The book is a meditation on God, Who He Is. The author’s starting point in the long discussion on providence is the understanding, as far as we can now, of the Nature of God and the nature of human beings.

I have taken so many notes on this book, I really do not know where to begin.

Let me concentrate on one idea today. Garrigou-Lagrange writes that holiness is the life of grace in its perfection.

As I have written many posts on grace, one can follow the tags on those sections. The Dominican notes that sanctifying grace is the participation in the Divine Nature. Knowing this, how can anything turn against grace, freely?

Garrigou-Lagrange makes it clear that it is completely rational to trust in God and to follow Him. So why is it that more people do not follow God, if we are all rational human beings? How is it that humans more and more turn against natural law and their own human consciences?

Providence is hard for many to understand, but the root of God’s care for us, is love. What is missing is the recognition that what all people desire is love, and that there is only one Person Who can meet our deep desires for fulfillment.

The fulfillment of our desire is only God. Love is the answer to all we really need.

Garrigou-Lagrange reminds us that God has a right to be loved by us.

We seek the real good, we desire more than we can see and find on this earth. The entire argument for God involves not only His Attributes, but an understanding of our won nature as human.

As I wrote last year on another blog, the new evangelization must start with the basic questions-who is man, who is woman, where are we going, what is the end of life, why do we exist and so on.

But, in order to evangelize at this level, one must have some knowledge of self and Who God Is.

Herein lies the problem….