When life doesn’t make sense – then what?  As we celebrate Easter and ponder Jesus’ incredible gift, it almost seems irreverent to even mention a question such as this.  But then again, perhaps this season is the best time of all to consider how Jesus’ incredible gift fits into and dramatically changes all the events of our life.

Saul thought he had life figured out.  He was passionate about his faith and was doing what he thought was right, but God had another plan for Saul.  As we read in today’s story from the 9th chapter of Acts, God dramatically intervened in Saul’s life.  Striking him blind on the road to Damascus doesn’t seem to make much sense on multiple levels.  Perhaps it would make sense if God’s sole purpose was to punish Saul, but that wasn’t it.  As we consider the full story of Paul’s fruitful life we would have to ask ourselves “why choose him in the first place”.  That certainly makes no sense.   The story goes on to a second event which again is hard to comprehend.  God asked Ananias to heal Saul.  Ananias was precisely the type of individual that Saul was after and Ananias was well aware of that danger.  He had to ask himself “why me”, it makes no sense that God would be asking Ananias to heal a famous persecutor of men of faith.  The drama in this story defies logic – none of it makes any sense, yet God’s perfect plan resulted in the development of Paul, the man used so powerfully by our Lord and Savior to reach Jews and Gentiles alike with the Good News of our Savior Jesus the Christ.  Perhaps the real hero of this story, and the one we need to emulate  is Ananias, the man who chose to TRUST God and follow his directive even when it made no sense to him.

The Responsorial Psalm for today lays out a simple directive from our God: “Go out to all the world and tell the Good News”.  One could easily think that this directive is impossible.  How could any one of us possibly go out into “all the world” and how would we accomplish telling EVERYONE about the Good News?  Once again it is not for us to question God.  There were no strings attached to this directive.  We simply must TRUST that God will show us the way and provide us with the wisdom to accomplish our piece of this directive, even if it doesn’t make sense in view of what we perceive as our limited abilities.  Trusting God and following His directives is all that we need to become the person He has created each one of us to be.

It doesn’t get any easier as we move into today’s Alleluia verses and the Gospel reading, both from the 6th chapter of John.  Jesus chose to use the unimaginable analogy “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood, you do not have life within you.”  Even with Jesus’ further clarifications, this could not possibly have made any sense to the Jews and more specifically His disciples.    From our vantage point today, it still challenges us to truly grasp the deep meaning of this concept.  Yet like so many other confusing things in life, we are simply called to recognize that God’s way is and always has been so much better than anything we could have thought of or imagined.  Praying for God’s will every moment of our lives provides us with the power to accept life especially when things make no sense.  His plan for each of us offers true and lasting Peace and Joy !

Dear Heavenly Father, help us to remember how you have always been with us, even in those difficult times when nothing seems to make sense.  When things look hopeless and there seems to be no way out.  In those times, help us to turn everything over to you and to TRUST in your everlasting love.  You do have a plan for each of us and will indeed work all the details out, while guiding us to become the men and women you have created each of us to be.
In Jesus’ holy, holy name.
Amen