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Buenos Aires, Sunday, November 12, 2006

Father Oscar Pezzarini

Our picture of God

Questionings about the existence of God are rather frequent, asking why certain things in the world don't cease to happen among all the injustice and suffering which can be seen every day, if in short we were taught that God protects and loves good people, those who love Him. God is good if He “settles” all my problems in some sort of “magical” way, and He is even more powerful if he settles them quickly. Faith in God, His love, our confidence in Him are things rather different from what many Christians think. Many times being a Christian means understanding that God even may make certain things happen which from a human point of view may seem incomprehensible, but which in His infinite love to us acquire deep sense and which after all are for our very best.

Frequently we overhear people wondering if God actually exists, and in case He does, why He doesn't “prove” His exsitence by granting what we pray for or by doing what we would like Him to do.

Questionings about the existence of God are rather frequent, asking why certain things in the world don't cease to happen among all the injustice and suffering which can be seen every day, if in short we were taught that God protects and loves good people, those who love Him.

Because many times it seems that God becomes deaf to the askings of Men.

I believe that as a starting point one of the questions we must ask ourselves is How do we picture God? What have we learned or what were we taught about God and Religion?

Many times we run into a way of experiencing Christianity as some kind of religiosity which to all intents and purposes is just a little “selfish” although we may also think of it as “pious”.

This is why I say this: Because perhaps we picture God as someone who is good and almighty as long as He grants us everything we wish.

It is true, God doesn't grant everything we pray for, but actually He grants us everything which will do good to us and which will provide for our best, and we should understand that a “great prayer” is not the one which makes “God wish what I wish” but the one which “makes me want what God wants”.

Faith in God, His love, our confidence in Him are things rather different from what many Christians think. Many times being a Christian means understanding that God even may make certain things happen which from a human point of view may seem incomprehensible, but which in His infinite love to us acquire deep sense and which after all are for our very best.

Thus I think we can synthesize the “picture” we may have of God by realizing if we have “true love to God”, if we really love Him as the Supreme Being which will always think of us and of our best, or if we stay short picturing God as someone we can somehow “use” for our purposes.

Father Oscar Pezzarini
Provincial Superior of the Work of Don Orione in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Mexico

Father Oscar Pezzarini together with Fr. Leonardo Abregú makes us reflect on Saturdays from 8 to 12 AM (GMT-03:00)with "VENTANA A LA VIDA", the Don Orione radio program he conducts on FM PROVIDENCIA, 90.3 MHz together with some residents of the Claypole Cottolengo (Raúl Romero, María Laura Andrada, Alberto Zoroch, Américo Torres), with the production of Roberto Beluzzo and Ignacio Cavalli as technical operator. You can also listen to FM PROVIDENCIA by clicking here.

Pequeño Cottolengo Don Orione 0800-333-6746 in Argentina, or +54 (11) 4268-7722 from abroad.

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