Friday 13th Superstition vs God's Providence

 Friday 13th Superstition vs God's Providence

 During the next few weeks, my book review series is temporarily suspended as I explore and read some more books. This series will recommence in a few weeks’ time for another 10 weeks.

Welcome back to my series 'General Topics.   Today's topic on God's Providence could also be included in faith nurturing but today I felt inclined to provide a catholic view and answer the secular view of Friday 13th-superstition.


Friday 13th is often associated with superstition and bad things happening.  So, let us examine what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say about it. It states:

III. "YOU SHALL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME"

2110 The first commandment forbids honoring gods other than the one Lord who has revealed himself to his people. It proscribes superstition and irreligion. Superstition in some sense represents a perverse excess of religion; irreligion is the vice contrary by defect to the virtue of religion. 

Superstition

2111 Superstition is the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition.

Idolatry

2113 Idolatry not only refers to false pagan worship. It remains a constant temptation to faith. Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons (for example, satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc. Jesus says, "You cannot serve God and mammon." Many martyrs died for not adoring "the Beast" refusing even to simulate such worship. Idolatry rejects the unique Lordship of God; it is therefore incompatible with communion with God.

2114 Human life finds its unity in the adoration of the one God. The commandment to worship the Lord alone integrates man and saves him from an endless disintegration. Idolatry is a perversion of man's innate religious sense. An idolater is someone who "transfers his indestructible notion of God to anything other than God."

So how do we define Divine Providence?  Divine providence consists in the dispositions with which God leads his creatures toward their ultimate end.  God is the sovereign Master of his own plan.  To carry it out, however, he also makes use of the cooperation of his creatures.  For God grants his creatures the dignity of acting on their own and of being causes for each other.

While respecting our freedom, God asks us to cooperate with Him and collaborate with His Divine Providence and gives the ability to do so through actions, prayers and sufferings, thus awakening in us the ‘desire’ to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church also states: 

2115 God can reveal the future to his prophets or to other saints. Still, a sound Christian attitude consists in putting oneself confidently into the hands of Providence for whatever concerns the future, and giving up all unhealthy curiosity about it. Improvidence, however, can constitute a lack of responsibility. 

2116 All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future.⁴⁸ Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone. 

2117 All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one's service and have a supernatural power over others - even if this were for the sake of restoring their health - are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another's credulity. 

What can I do to co-operate with Divine Providence in my life?

1.            I can ask God to help me to cooperate with His plan each day.

2.            I can repent of the times where I have not cooperated with God’s plan for my life.

3.            I can thank God for granting me the dignity of acting on my own and of being causes for other people.

4.            I can thank God for giving me the ability to cooperate with Him.

5.            I can repent of my actions, prayers and sufferings when they do not cooperate with Divine Providence.

6.            I can ask God to increase the desire to will and to work for His good pleasure.

 During the week you may wish to consider the following questions:

1.            Why does God use the cooperation of his creatures when He is sovereign Master of his plan?

2.            What are the actions, prayers and sufferings in my life which do not cooperate with God?

3.            Why do I not cooperate with God’s plan in my life- what are the issues for me and how does God use these issues to carry me to His plan?

4.            How do I help others in cooperating with God’s plan?

5.            Do I truly desire to will and to work for His good pleasure?

Next time we are tempted to use the expression ' touch wood,'

let us think of God's providence and touch the wood of the Cross instead.