Providence in the Plains

I recently flew from Memphis to Omaha to visit a person very dear to me for a few days. This journey also marked my first trip to Nebraska and to the part of our United States which is known as “The Great Plains.” Ahead of this trip, I had been praying about a number of very personal special intentions – not only for myself, but also for the person with whom I would be visiting. Worry and anxiety had all but seized me the weeks before I would begin this unforgettable journey, and even add to those concerns my lack of certainty as to how the trip would turn out. For weeks ahead of my visit, I began communicating with Our Lord in prayer more frequently through the intercession of Saints Jude (Patron of seemingly impossible causes) and Therese, the Little Flower, who is known to have remarked, “I will let fall from Heaven a shower of roses; I will spend my Heaven doing good for those on earth.” My decision was to trust, as a very wise priest had so advised me ahead of my journey, in God’s “Divine Providence.”

Catholic theologians generally define “Divine Providence” as “God’s intervention in the world, particularly in the lives of His human creation.” This, for me, could not have been a more apt description of what I was seeking as I embarked on my trip to Omaha. I was seeking spiritual and emotional clarity; something I knew I could only attain by continuing to follow where Divine Providence had already directed me – that being, to visit this person so dear to me, who in a very real way “makes hope manifest” and so radiantly “reflects the image of God” in which we were all created. The circumstances of our coming to know one another far surpass mere coincidence, especially given the great physical distance between us; and further, the more skeptical person might argue that discerning and separating cases of Divine Providence from mere coincidence are “hit or miss” at best, but, to that, I must counter. I am so quickly reminded of the wisdom of the Jesuit founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola, whose popular spiritual maxim has become the importance of “finding God in all things.” Further, even St. Monica (St. Augustine’s mother) is noted to have remarked that “Nothing is far from God.”

Given these pearls of Saintly wisdom, I wish to share this most personal and revelatory experience of Divine Providence as I experienced it during my Omaha visit. Mind you, this is one of but several examples I encountered. On the second to the last day of my journey, the person I was visiting and I were randomly driving along headed back from a lovely day in the country (at Vala’s, as a matter of fact). Suddenly, as we were driving along, she said she wished I could see the “Holy Family Shrine” in Gretna, but she was unsure if it was open at the time. We drove along for a few more miles on the main highway. The exit we would need to take if we were going to visit would soon be approaching. Quickly, I typed the name into Google. It revealed we had 40 minutes until it closed for the day. She asked me to input directions into the iPhone GPS, but I had to be quick or we would miss our exit. My phone, of course, then loses power. But, at the same time, we catch a stop-light at an intersection. I connect to a power source and the phone reopens to Google with the address on the screen right away… No need to unlock the phone at all for some reason this time. I input the address and we began driving towards the Shrine.

We arrive moments later to find ourselves among maybe three other pilgrims there for a visit. Still somewhat weighted down by my plethora of concerns and troubles, I approached the Shrine’s beautiful altar. I paused for a moment to pray there before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, the gorgeous Nebraska plains and sunset a magnificently fitting backdrop to the clear window panes that surrounded the sanctuary. As I began to slowly walk to the back of the Shrine, the person I was visiting invited me to light a petition candle with her. We did and holding it together, prayed, before placing it back in the holder. We then went outside and began to walk the trails that wind amongst the reeds and around the bluffs atop which the Shrine sits. As we were walking along, we suddenly happen upon a clearing where a giant Crucifix stood overlooking the highway. In front of it was a bench. As we sat there for a few meditative moments, I noticed at the base of the Crucifix a number of small pebbles similar to those I saw in Holy Water fonts all throughout the Shrine. I took one of my business cards from my wallet and a coin bearing Pope Francis’ image on one side and Our Lady, the Undoer of Knots on the other and placed it at the base of this Crucifix. We paused there for a moment longer in prayer and admiration at the beauty of the place. Something was stirring in each of us yet we knew not what it was, but we both agreed as we walked along that we simply felt “lighter,” “unburdened,” as if we were in a very “thin place,” where perhaps the veil between earth and Heaven was a little less thick.

We continued to walk along the trails that led back to the Shrine entrance. The person I was with stopped in her tracks and tugged at my shoulder. “Look,” she said, and continuing, “Flowers… and we’ve had several nights of frost here already. How are they even alive?” We walked further along until the trail rounded around to a sort of rock-hewn grotto covered by a pergola. There sat a gorgeous statue of the Blessed Mother, and as she with whom I was visiting remarked, “Of course! That explains the flowers… Mary is here!” However, not only were these ordinary autumn flowers (mums and the like), but beautiful, un-wilted, pink roses still in full bloom. There, I remembered the prayers I had been saying all the weeks before my visit and the promise attached to the St. Therese, The Little Flower Prayer, namely, that if one’s prayers had been heard and are being answered or worked-out, one would see or smell or receive roses. I could no longer contain my tears… and apparently neither could she. Both of us sat there, in Mary’s grotto at “The Holy Family Shrine,” surrounded by roses, each shedding tears of things revealed to us each only by God’s “Divine Providence.” To those who would ask for evidence that confirms these incidences as those of “Divine Providence,” I would say they are missing the point. As St. Anselm said, “I do not understand that I may come to believe; instead, I believe that I might understand.” How often do we seek explanation rather than revelation? How often have we missed “encounters with God” by seeing them only as coincidence rather than Providence? Might we all resolve today to be more sensitive to God’s intervention in our lives in even the most seemingly ordinary ways, remembering that most pivotal truth that “Nothing is far from God.”