December 21, 2011

Nothing By Accident

Three years ago our family vacationed one very visually stimulating week in Florence and Rome, Italy when our middle child was ensconced in her college semester abroad.  I’ll never forget the beautiful Italian accented English spoken by our tour guide in the Villa Borghese as she pondered ancient artwork that had been commissioned by the family of a Pope.  The art was full of religious symbolism reflecting the conflicts of good and evil and the conflicts of the period in which the artist lived.  One had to be well versed in Italian history to fully appreciate the painting.  She pointed out not only the objects and their significance but their location on the canvas, their relative size to one another, the lighting, and so on and said, “Nothing by accident,” referring to every minuscule detail of the work.  This phrase has resonated in my thinking this Advent season.  I have witnessed uncanny “coincidences” in my life and the lives of my family.

The December 18 entry in the 1992 edition of My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers is titled “Test Of Faithfulness” and begins with the passage from Romans 8:28, “We know that all things work together for good to those who love God…” and then states, “it is only a faithful person who truly believes that God sovereignly controls the circumstances.”  God is free to do His will in the truly faithful person, therefore, in the life of one who strives to know God, nothing is by accident or merely coincidence but by a most sovereign design.  Many in our Fellowship are carefully, prayerfully studying the Catholic Catechism to discern God’s will in their lives.  Is our sovereign God presenting us with this spiritual challenge to draw us closer in our faith to one another and to Him?

I am certain that this is true.  God is very much in the details and His timing is perfect.  Our daughter’s application for a summer internship with the Heritage Foundation was rejected.  She was soon thereafter accepted as a Fellow in the John Jay Institute.  The past 15 weeks have been an intense transformative study that has prepared her all the more for her six month internship with the Heritage Foundation which begins next month.  God had a better plan.  “Nothing by accident.”

A curious thing happened when we moved from our comfortable place of worship in the Church of The Good Shepherd, Rosemont, and departed from the company of many friends we cherish.  The seating arrangement changed.  I have since met some wonderful parishioners who have already ministered to me and hopefully I to them, who were previously just a name and a face.  We had never had the occasion to talk before simply because we always sat in the same place on Sunday.  Our paths just did not cross.  What a wonderful “coincidence” and consequence of our new beginning in the community of the Blessed John Henry Newman Fellowship.

My family attended the Commissioning ceremony of the Fall 2011 class of John Jay Institute Fellows this past Friday, held at the Washington Memorial Chapel in Valley Forge.  After studying the ancient philosophies that our Founding Fathers were well versed in through their Classical educations and learning of the personal faith of greats such as Wilberforce, John Adams, and George Washington, the Fellows received their send off into Christian Service on hallowed ground.  Father Alan Crippen, Anglican priest and founder of the John Jay Institute, challenged and urged this tight band of Christian servants to be sober, vigilant, penitent, and a mission.  He was speaking directly to the Fellows but said we should all have this posture, especially during Advent. 

Coming full circle, Sunday we were blessed and honored with a sermon by Father John Jay Hughes, a direct descendant of the Founding Father John Jay, for whom Father Crippen named his post graduate educational Institute, John Jay being the most religious of the founding fathers.  I’m not aware either priest was aware of the other and they had never previously met.  Father Crippen attended our service.  Father Hughes pointed out in his sermon that the way the Messiah King came to earth, slipping under the Roman King’s radar as an infant, was by the design of a Sovereign God.  It simply wouldn’t have worked any other way.  Details, “nothing by accident.”

When my daughter was studying in Europe she was actually living in Denmark.  We could have spent our Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday vacation with her there or in any European city, but went, in fact, to Rome.  We were saturated with the beauty of a culture deeply intertwined in Catholic faith.  We visited the Vatican.  In the big picture of my life, I think back on this now and say to myself, “Nothing by accident.”