There Is a Plan… Even If It’s Not Yours, by Joannie Watson

US Bishops Tell Catholic Voters Abortion is ‘Preeminent Issue’ in 2020 Election, by Lianne Laurence
September 26, 2020
The Daily Scripture Reading and Meditation: They Were Astonished at the Majesty of God
September 26, 2020

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By Joannie Watson, Integrated Catholic, Sept. 25, 2020.

Joan Watson was born and raised in Lafayette, Indiana, but college and graduate school took her to Virginia, Ohio, and Rome. After graduating from Christendom College with a B.A. in History and Franciscan University with a M.A. in Theology…

 “I will only find peace when I surrender.”

Today’s first reading from Ecclesiastes probably sounds familiar, whether you’ve heard it at a funeral or from The Byrds.

There is an appointed time for everything,
and a time for every thing under the heavens.
A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant.
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to tear down, and a time to build…

It’s a mixed bag; it is somehow encouraging and cold at the same time. Of the fourteen pairs, we want only the better half. We want to be born but not to die. We want to plant, heal, build, laugh, and dance. Who desires those other things? Can’t we avoid those? And shouldn’t our obedience to a loving God merit for us that we avoid them?

But that’s not the way life works. There is rending, not just sewing. There is weeping and silence and war.  …