A young man visited Our Lady of Lourdes Sanctuary with his parents and grandparents. Watching his mother and grandmother bring flowers up to the grotto, he asked his grandfather. Why is grandma taking flowers up the hill?
Your grandma is going up to the grotto to thank God for all the blessings in her life, because your grandma knows that God has been very kind to her, even when she was very sick.
Did God make her better?
Yes, God made her better, through the prayers and intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and with the help of doctors. God also gave her the strength, courage and hope she needed to get through the difficult times in her life when she was sick.
Can God actually do that?
Yes, He can, because God is all powerful. When we think about what God is, we recognize that God is all good, all knowing, all powerful, ever present, perfect, unchanging and eternally exists. And when we think about God Eternal, it is understood than nothing greater than God can be imagined. God is so great that He created everything that exists. God made the entire cosmos, the universe that we are part of.
Why did God do all this?
Because God is love and goodness comes from love.
Then why is it that some people don’t believe in God?
I think most people do believe in God because we all seek after a higher power than ourselves. All around us we see and discover things in nature that are full of design, not the result of randomness, chaos or some happy accident. When you look at a watch, you recognize that a watchmaker made it. That there is an intelligence, a mind responsible for its intricate design. If someone were to randomly throw cans of paint on a wall, you know it would not result in a masterpiece like the Mona Lisa. When your dad and you built your tree house, it was from a design your dad made. When you see another treehouse somewhere you don’t think it just came into existence all by itself, by accident. You know that someone designed it and built it.
The universe that contains the treehouse and the Mona Lisa has an unimaginably greater intelligent design in it. From mathematics to the laws of gravity, to how a flower develops from a tiny seed, to how a baby comes into being and grows in its mother’s womb, we are constantly discovering and in awe at the order and intelligent design that exists in the universe. Think about a string of DNA, such a complex and elegant design, even in the smallest element of a created thing!
We also know that it is impossible to get more out of less. An effect cannot be greater than its cause. So whatever caused the universe is greater than the universe and outside of it. The universe is full of design that is intricately interwoven and the intelligence which caused it all is unimaginable. So there must be a supreme intelligence, far greater than that of human beings, a grand designer who is responsible for all the intelligent design and order in the universe. I bet you would be surprised to know that this supreme intelligence, this grand designer “GOD” knows you!
OK Grandpa, if God made everything, who made God?
No one made God because God is eternal. God is the first cause of everything that exists. We know and understand that everything that comes into existence has a cause, a beginning. It makes no sense to think of going back forever to no starting point, to nothing, because nothing produces nothing. Everything that begins to exist needs a cause, and if there had never been a first cause, there could not be a second, third, fourth, or trillionth cause. The existence of the universe had a first cause, a beginning in time, about fifteen billion years ago, and the First Cause is God Eternal, the Creator.
But God seems so far away and impersonal.
I guess sometimes God can seem far away, as if He is not here. But God is not only the First Cause of everything that exists, He is the all-powerful cause that constantly keeps all creation in existence. To some people, God is far away; God only exists as a mindless force of nature. Once in a while they may notice God, as they sometimes notice a rainbow, but to them He makes no difference. For those who know God is real and present, He makes the greatest difference in their lives, in everything they do, for God becomes intensely personal to them. We know that we are made for God and that God created us out of love. We know this because when we search for God, He reveals Himself to us. He allows us to catch a glimpse of Himself.
Using our reason and intelligence, we all have a natural knowledge of God. But we can also know God by our heart and the heart is the best way of knowing Him. It is also the best way of knowing other people. In fact, heart knowledge is the most intimate way of knowing others and knowing God. Now it is true that God is infinite and we cannot know all there is to know about Him. But faith, hope and love are the heart’s way of knowing God, of acknowledging His awesome presence. To have faith is to trust God. The more we trust God, the more we come to know Him. When we seek God in faith, He reveals Himself in love and we grow in hope. Hope is faith looking toward the future, the future where we rest in God, who is the fulfillment of all desire.
Why do you think grandma loves God? Because she knows God intimately. Because she knows God loves her! Grandma is just loving God back. She wants to be close to Him. Even when she gets sick, she knows God loves her and your grandma is very grateful for God’s love. And God’s love has made your grandma the loving person that she is. So if you want to see how she talks to God, the awesome Creator of all things, who is closer to her than her own heart, go up to the grotto and watch and listen and maybe join in. And when you go, bring these flowers for Our Lady up with you.
O Mary conceived without sin,
pray for us who have recourse to thee.
Peter and Linda Krushelnyski
Source :
Voix du sanctuaire 2023 (PDF).