Thank God Ahead of Time
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Thank you to the more than 12,100 people who are answering the Call of Mary and praying the Rosary Podcast with us daily.
Blessed Solanus Casey and his motto “Thank God ahead of time” are essential for the uncertain times we live. In this meditation I want you to get to know him and his spirituality better.
Solanus grew up in Wisconsin in the late 1800s. He joined the diocesan seminary in 1894 but their seminary was taught in Latin and German, two languages Casey could not grasp. From this they concluded he was not smart enough to go on and they dismissed him. Young Solanus surrendered his future to Mary making a novena to her. On the last day of the novena Mary appeared to him on the wall of the church and told him to go to Detroit and enter the Franciscans there. Heeding the call of Our Lady, Solanus went to Detroit but his difficulties did not end. Believing he was not intelligent, the Franciscans accepted him, ordained him but would not give him permission to preach homilies or hear confessions, he was only allowed to pray Mass privately and do the duties of the other Franciscan brothers. Even more humiliating, they made him the door man at the monastery in downtown Detroit. Faced with something he did not choose, do not like and could not change he had two options: quit and leave or stay and trust. He chose to stay, and He thanked God ahead of time with the confidence that Our Lady called him and God would work it in his favor. And this became his Motto – Thank God ahead of time!
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God did work this for the good of Casey and 10s of 1000s of others. When people faced every type of suffering, loss or difficulty, they would come to the Franciscan Monastery in downtown Detroit, knock on the door looking for someone to help them. And who answered the door, Fr Solanus. He would listen to their story and if he could help materially, he would. Often it was not a material problem as in the case of terminal cancer, addictions, broken marriages, ect. Fr. Solanus would write down their problem in his prayer journal and promise to pray for them in his private Mass and encourage the person with the problem to thank God ahead of time, for whatever God would do. Then the miracles began to occur. People came back to the Monastery with tales of miraculous cures, reconciled marriages, addictions overcome, and so on. When Fr. Solanus died in 1957 more than 10,000 people came to his wake and funeral, most with some story of a miracle attributed to Casey and his Motto to Thank God ahead of time.
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We can always thank God ahead of time because God turns all things to good for those who love him (Romans 8:28) We may have to wait and hope patiently until we see just how God worked it for our best and we may not get to see it until we are in heaven, but the reality, that is, the way things are, remains: God works all things for good for those who love him. This is why Casey could write: “Shake off the excessive worry and instead exercise a little confidence in God’s merciful providence by first promising some little sacrifice in thanksgiving if things go favorably. Then to show your confidence in His goodness start thanking Him now for what He may see best to do.”
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Not all evil and suffering were miraculously changed by the prayer of Fr. Solanus Casey. For some their situations were changed, for others they were not. A friend came to visit him with a child who was suffering from what appeared to be a cold. Fr. Solanus looked at the child and told the father, “Go to the chapel and tell God he can have her.” The child died of undetected pleurisy a few days later. It is a mystery why God heals some and not others. But we can know with certainty that no matter what happens, the only way God can allow evil, suffering and loss is if He is going to bring about an even greater good though the thing is bad, even very bad.
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But how can we thank God for the evil that happens to us? We don’t have to thank Him for the evil that has happened and we certainly don’t have to like or be happy with the evil. That would be ridiculous. But we can thank God ahead of time that He will turn even the greatest evil to be the greatest benefit in our life.
CCC 312 From the greatest moral evil ever committed - the rejection and murder of God's only Son, caused by the sins of all men - God, by his grace that "abounded all the more", brought the greatest of goods: the glorification of Christ and our redemption. But for all that, evil never becomes a good.
Jesus knew God the Father would allow this evil to happen to him. He knew it at the Last Supper when he took bread and wine and gave thanks, eucharist, ahead of time, thanking God His Father ahead of time that God would turn what the evil that was about to happen to the greatest good for Jesus and the whole world.
That is why we can thank him ahead of time no matter what! That is what Hope is. Hope is the absolute confidence, the certainty that God works all things for good, and I mean ALL things, for those who love him.