Good evening Father Angelo,

I have already had the pleasure of conversing with you in the past and meditating on your valuable spiritual advice.

For some time now, I have had serious doubts about a matter I would like to bring to your attention so that you can enlighten me.

As you suggested to me, I have been praying very much to our Lord that he will help me find the love of my life and crown the dream of marriage by creating a family. 

Now, I would like to ask you; sometimes when I pray for this good intention of mine, the thought of many bad things happening in the world such as wars, diseases and children dying, comes into my mind.

Then I feel stuck, I get an inner discouragement and I think: with all these problems in the world, how could God listen to me? That I pray to find the woman of my life to start a family? So I feel stuck and discouraged.

Now, I would like to ask you, regardless of all the bad things that happen in the world, can I pray for my good intention to find true love as well? Or will God never listen to me about this?

I hope that your answer can help me and restore my hope.

With high esteem

Michele

The priest’s answer

Dear Michele,

  1. Our way of thinking about God sometimes resembles that of the ancient pagans. We imagine God lost in thought because of all the problems existing in the world.

When the prophet Elijah came to dispute with the priests of Baal, since the invocation of their God Baal was not answered, he mocked them by saying: perhaps Baal is deep in thought, shout louder!

Here is the full text: “Taking the young bull that was turned over to them, they prepared it and called on Baal from morning to noon, saying, “Answer us, Baal!” But there was no sound, and no one answering. And they hopped around the altar they had prepared.When it was noon, Elijah taunted them: “Call louder, for he is a god and may be meditating, or may have retired, or may be on a journey. Perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.”They called out louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until blood gushed over them. Noon passed and they remained in a prophetic state until the time for offering sacrifice. But there was not a sound; no one answered, and no one was listening.  (1 Kgs 18,26-29).

  1. In the face of these gods who cannot answer because they do not exist, the Holy Spirit through David says: “Behold, he who keeps Israelwill neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord  is your keeper; The Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day,nor the moon by night.The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.  (Ps 121,4-9).
  2. Beyond the statements of Holy Scripture, which are the most important statements of all and which apply to every man, no one excluded, I now come to the theological motivation. St. Thomas presents some statements of paramount importance.

  First of all he says that “a person represents the noblest thing found in the whole universe, namely a subsistent reality of rational nature.” (The Summa Theologica, I, 29,3).

Then he says of God “He not only loves man simply as a craftsman loves his own work, but just as a friend loves a friend, wanting that the glory and beatitude whereby God is blessed, may be the glory and beatitude of man” (St.Thomas  II Sent., d. 26, I, I, ad 2)

This means that in the eyes of God man does not count as a part of the whole. But he counts as the whole.

God loves every single human being as much as he loves the whole world.

4.In addition to that, if we consider the dignity of a person living in grace, we must say that in the eyes of the Lord he acquires an even greater dignity, of a supernatural order.

St. Thomas states that “the good of grace in one is greater than the good of nature in the whole universe. (The Summa Theologica, I-II, 113, 9, ad 2).

In His eyes the one who has become by grace what Christ is by nature, namely God’s adopted son, not only counts as much as the whole world counts, but counts as much as God counts.

5. Therefore His love for you is infinite.

Your whole life is watched over and governed by such great love whose boundaries are unknown.

Therefore be always infinitely trusting! The Lord always wants to give you the greatest of goods.

So that you are always ready to welcome him moment by moment, I assure you my prayer, I bless you and I wish you all the best.

Father Angelo

Questo articolo è disponibile anche in: Italian Spanish Portuguese