Nothing happens by accident, but providence says Fr Ebido - ITREALMS

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Sunday, Fourth Week of Lent B (March 15 /2021) 

Your Daily Blessing: May the Lord protect from all dark forces of evil. Amen.

Read Chron 36:14-23; Eph 2:4-10; John 3:14-21; pray psalm 136[135].

NARRATION: If you have gone to the ghetto before, or driving your car in the night, and come to where people were hanging out in the dark, and point your torchlight or headlights at them, you will notice they often don’t want the light.

They may even become violent towards the person with the light. Those of us who have been ‘night crawlers,’ before we came to know the light of Christ, understand very well how attractive darkness could be sometimes. 

Night clubs use dark or colored lights for a reason. Prostitutes, criminals, witches and wizards, and most dark arts, operate mostly in the shades, under the cover of darkness for same reason. Affinity to darkness helps us also to discern the ‘forces at work’ in our encounters.

Forces that operate mostly at night often reveal ‘dark and evil’ “thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers” (Col 1:16); what Paul also calls, the “rulers of the darkness of this world” (Eph 6:12c). Why?

 

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According to the psalmist (see Ps 104:19-23), “You appoint darkness and it becomes night in which all the beasts of the forest prowl about. The young lions roar after their prey as they seek their food from God.” The “beasts” is a symbol not just for physical animals but all forms of ‘low grade’ and dark beings and powers (in high and low places).

Night is assigned to them as operational time; to search for food among other ‘animals,’ those under God’s wrath. Nothing happens by accident, everything is providence. If God should open our eyes to ‘see’ what happens at night, we will hardly sleep again or die of fear. 

So he shields us from it, protects us, and keeps us sane. We need not know what goes on in the night (or even day!) unless you are assigned to be a ‘watchman’ for “unless the Lord watches the city, the watchmen keep vigil in vain” (Ps 127:1b). For “he provides for his children even in their sleep” (Ps 127:2b).

 

Nicodemus is a symbol of all who yearn for the light but are consigned to darkness by habit or circumstances of life. Some have gone too far into the night and are afraid of the light and its consequences. Yet, they would like to come to the light. 

I advice them to know that the light is a friend. The light is not ‘judging’ you but helping you to ‘see the road’ out of the forest, so you don’t become a victim of the beasts of prey. For “God sent his Son [the light] not to condemn but to save” (Jn 3:17). I advice such a person to kneel down even now and cry to the Lord for help. He will hear you and deliver you like he did Nicodemus in today’s Gospel.

 

PRAYER: Mighty God, in your mercy you lead your children who believe in you out of darkness into the light. Help us shed the habits of the night, and live as children of the light and of the day. Amen

🙏🏽©️Fr Augustine Ebido, O.P.

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