Lectio Divina – “Worry”
1. Lectio
Gospel: Matthew 6:25-34
«”Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life,
what you will eat or drink,
or about your body, what you will wear…
Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?…
So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’
or ‘What are we to drink?’
or ‘What are we to wear?’…
Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.”»
Jesus does not deny the reality of human needs. Rather, He forbids me from becoming their slave. Worry pretends to be prudence, but often it is merely fear wearing respectable clothes. My Lord does not command carelessness; He commands confidence. He reminds me that little faith can become large faith, not by adding more plans, but by trusting more deeply in the Father who already knows what I need.
—
2. Meditatio
In Dad’s flower garden here at The Glenn, his day lilies are presently clothed in splendor. It is tempting for me to worry about keeping them just as they are, as though beauty could be preserved by anxiety. Yet flowers bloom and fade according to a wisdom greater than my own, and perhaps that is precisely their lesson.
Understanding that truth is a gift to be shared rather than a possession to be monopolized frees me from seeking security through power or control. Saint John Paul II invited the Church to examine honestly those moments when truth was defended through intolerance or even violence. Pope Leo XIV likewise reminds me that the Church “does not claim to possess a monopoly on truth,” because truth is not a fortress to be guarded but a treasure to be offered.
Pope Francis’s striking phrase, “time is greater than space,” speaks directly to my tendency to worry. I often wish to occupy spaces, secure positions, and preserve things exactly as they are. Yet God is more interested in beginning good processes than in maintaining strongholds. The Kingdom grows like a garden, not like a fortress.
Thus, the truth of the Gospel is not imposed from above but unfolds within the concrete interweaving of lives, communities, and cultures. It fears neither diversity nor history. Rather, it transforms conflicts into communion and gathers together what time has scattered.
Pope Francis compared this reality to a polyhedron whose many faces reflect one truth from different angles. Standing among the day lilies, I begin to suspect that perhaps God delights in variety more than uniformity and in growth more than preservation.
And so I worry less. For if truth itself is a gift entrusted to time, then surely my own life may also be entrusted to the same providence. The flowers do not strive to remain flowers forever, and neither need I. My task is not to preserve everything, but to receive everything with gratitude.
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3. Oratio
Lord Jesus,
You know how readily I worry.
I worry about tomorrow,
about unfinished projects,
about the future of The Glenn,
about the Church,
about the world,
and even about things that may never happen.
Teach me again the lesson of the lilies.
Teach me to work diligently without imagining that everything depends upon me.
Deliver me from the illusion that I can secure by anxiety what can only be received by grace.
On this Saturday dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, I ask for the gift of her trust.
She did not understand everything,
yet she pondered all things in her heart.
She stood beneath the Cross without despair,
waited in hope,
and believed that God’s promises are fulfilled in His time.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
teach me to live one day at a time.
May I seek first the Kingdom,
and leave tomorrow in the hands of the Father.
Amen.
—
4. Contemplatio
(Chestertonian Synthesis – Saturday Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary)
I have always suspected that worry is atheism dressed in respectable clothing. A man who worries imagines himself Atlas, carrying the universe upon his shoulders, while God politely waits nearby asking whether He might carry it instead.
The birds sing because they have not mistaken themselves for Providence. The lilies bloom because they have never attempted to become their own Creator. And Our Lady became Queen of Heaven precisely because she was content to remain the handmaid of the Lord.
The modern world tells me to manage everything. The Blessed Virgin teaches me to receive everything.
How curious that the woman who possessed the greatest responsibility in history also possessed the greatest peace. She bore God Himself and yet she did not fret. She pondered.
Worry is always impatient because it wishes to possess tomorrow. Hope, however, is content to receive tomorrow as a gift.
Perhaps that is why Saturday belongs to Mary. After the tragedy of Good Friday and the silence of Holy Saturday, she alone rested in hope. The Apostles worried; she remembered.
And I suspect that heaven itself is full of those who finally discovered that God had been worrying about them all along.
So I shall do my duty, say my prayers, tend the flowers, and leave the government of the universe to Someone far more qualified.
For the world is not held together by my anxieties.
It is held together by the love of God.
And that, after all, is enough.
Saturday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
