Youcat commented through CCC. Question n. 49 – Part II.

YOUCAT Question n. 49 - Part II. Does God guide the world and my life?

(Youcat answer - repeated) Yes, but in a mysterious way; God guides everything along paths that only he knows, leading it to its perfection. At no point in time does something that he has created fall out of his hands.    

A deepening through CCC

(CCC 304) And so we see the Holy Spirit, the principal author of Sacred Scripture, often attributing actions to God without mentioning any secondary causes. This is not a "primitive mode of speech", but a profound way of recalling God's primacy and absolute Lordship over history and the world (Cf. Isa 10:5-15; 45:51; Dt 32:39; Sir 11:14), and so of educating his people to trust in him. The prayer of the Psalms is the great school of this trust (Cf. Pss 22; 32; 35; 103; 138; et al.). (CCC 43) Admittedly, in speaking about God like this, our language is using human modes of expression; nevertheless it really does attain to God himself, though unable to express him in his infinite simplicity. Likewise, we must recall that "between Creator and creature no similitude can be expressed without implying an even greater dissimilitude" (Lateran Council IV: DS 806); and that "concerning God, we cannot grasp what he is, but only what he is not, and how other beings stand in relation to him" (St. Thomas Aquinas, SCG I, 30).   

Reflecting and meditating 

(Youcat comment) God influences both the great events of history and also the little events of our personal life, without reducing our freedom or making us mere marionettes in his eternal plans. In God “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). God is in everything we meet in all the changes in our life, even in the painful events and the seemingly meaningless coincidences. God wants to write straight even with the crooked lines of our life. What he takes away from us and what he gives us, the ways in which he strengthens us and the ways in which he tests us—all these are rrangements and signs of his will.

(CCC Comment)

(CCC 305) Jesus asks for childlike abandonment to the providence of our heavenly Father who takes care of his children's smallest needs: "Therefore do not be anxious, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?"… Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well" (Mt 6:31-33; cf. 10:29-31). 305    

(The next question is: What role does man play in God’s providence?)