9781644135945

The Time After Pentecost
or admit, we busy ourselves in the search for worldly possessions and become absorbed in
temporal things. We are given so much to these things and we are so concerned with worldly
affairs and worldly possessions and cares, that we are in danger of forgetting the one thing
most necessary, our eternal salvation. Many men are so absorbed with their daily tasks,
with duties of their state of life, and with the care of their family, that they give little heed
to their spiritual progress and to the condition of their soul. Even the graces which God
gives them through the sermons they hear and the instructions they receive, or through
the inner inspirations which He gives them, produce very little effect. In their case the seed
cast down by the sower falls among thorns. They hear the word of God, but “the care of this
world and the deceitfulness of riches choketh up the word, and he becometh fruitless” (Mt
13:22). “Cast all your care upon Him, for He hath care of you.” How utterly lacking we are
in confidence! How little trust we place in Him with regard to our spiritual and corporal
needs, or to our family and those dear to us! We want to make all the necessary provisions
ourselves; so great is our trust in our own abilities.
“For He hath care of you.” This is the picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus which the liturgy
presents to us. “What man is there of you that hath a hundred sheep, and if he shall lose one of
them, doth he not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after that which was lost until he
find it; and when he hath found it, lay it upon his shoulders rejoicing, and coming home call
together his friends and neighbors, saying to them: Rejoice with me because I have found my
sheep that was lost?” Then the liturgy gives us a second image of the Lord’s tender solicitude:
“Or what woman having ten groats, if she lose one groat, doth not light a candle, and sweep the
house, and seek diligently until she find it; and when she hath found it, call together her friends
and neighbors, saying: Rejoice with me because I have found the groat which I had lost?” These
parables present a telling picture of the loving solicitude which the Lord shows for our salvation.
How completely we can depend on His love and His constancy! “Let them trust in Thee who
know Thy name, O Lord; for Thou hast not forsaken them that seek Thee” (Offertory).
“Cast all your care upon Him.” Does this mean that we are to have no solicitude whatever for our
own welfare? No, indeed! There is a necessary solicitude which we must have. The Lord Himself
teaches us that we are to pray and work for our daily bread. He desires that to the five talents we
have been given, we add another five. He reproaches the slothful servant for not having placed
the money entrusted to him where it might draw interest (Mt 25:27). We must exercise a certain
amount of solicitude for the necessities of life and make efforts to procure them. But there is
also an unjustified and perverted solicitude. Many people exercise such an intense solicitude
and expend so much energy in providing for their temporal needs that they live and think as
though there were no such thing as divine providence. Such unwonted solicitude is condemned
both by our Lord and by the liturgy, which tells us to “cast your care upon Him.” Put aside all
anxious and unwonted solicitude. Trust in the Lord and His love, “for He hath care of you.”
“Cast all your care upon Him.” We have only one obligation about which we must be solicitous,
and that is to do at this moment what God at this moment wants us to do. All other cares
we may cast upon the Lord, trusting with a blind faith, leaving all else in His hands.
“Cast all your care upon Him.” The care of that which is temporal and of that which is
eternal, the care of our past and of our future, we place with supreme confidence in His hands.
“He hath care of you.”
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