By Cardinal Stephen Chow, S.J.
Maria was very disappointed with God. In addition, she was even a bit angry with God! She felt she was a devout Catholic, and she had urged her family members to get baptised. She attended Mass every week, and even picked up elderly parishioners on her way to Mass. She tried her best to donate at every Mass. Yet why didn’t God answer her prayer!
Her daughter would be promoted to secondary school, and she would have liked nothing more than for her to be admitted to a prestigious school! For one thing, her daughter could have a better education and she would feel very honoured and, more importantly, her daughter would not have to take judo lessons in that school. How could her dainty daughter take judo lessons? It was only because the teachers in this school were pushing her to do so! She hated that her husband had agreed to it. But if her daughter entered into that prestigious school, she might not be able to cope with her homework and would have no time for her judo! So, she kept praying to God to let her daughter go to the prestigious school.
Also, one of her former high school classmates was sick and in the final stages of her illness. She was also asking God to give her classmate a miracle so that she would recover soon.
A few months passed, her daughter stayed at her old school for judo training with her husband’s support, and her female classmate went to heaven. Maria was so angry that she decided not to go to church, not to pick up the elderly people, and not to donate to the church, because she thought that God was not answering her prayers, and so she would not respond to him either!
But she didn’t notice that during the whole prayer process, she had actually put herself in God’s place. She had put herself before God, without considering the fact that only God knows what is best.
However, gradually Maria saw that as her daughter continued to study in the same school, because of the training as an athlete, she became more self-disciplined and knew how to allocate her time, and was willing to study harder. She became more confident after she represented her school in competitions and got good results. She knew that God’s planning was right.
In addition, for her classmate’s family, her classmate’s passing relieved the pressure of taking care of her and the tension due to disagreements about ways of treatment. Besides, her classmate had indeed gone to a better place. In the presence of God, God is God. Let’s leave everything to God!
