What’s going on?

The texts today from the Roman Catholic Lectionary speak to the difference between our expectations and the timing of the action of God. The Prophet Habakkuk writes of the pagan conqueror who destroys nations who are more righteous than they. The help of God for His people seems to be absent. The response received by the prophet encourages him to wait for the time of the action of God to be initiated. This is a call to believers to have faith and trust in Providence. Friar Jude Winkler comments that our action and our passion for justice and good is not wrong. In addition to our desire to see God act we need to be accepting of the timetable of God. The trust in God of Saint Claire, who is commemorated by the Church today as one who lived in a spirit of poverty, is an example echoed in the praise of the psalmist today of God Who “does not forget the cry of the afflicted”. The Gospel of Matthew reasserts that our action for God must be based in faith. We trust like Abraham and Mary beyond the point of our experience and senses that the will of God is the most loving direction for the events of our lives to take especially when we are puzzled by “What’s going on?”.