2nd Reading, 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time

From: Romans 11:33-36

The Conversion of the Jews (Continuation)

[33] O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
[34] "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?"
[35] "Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?"
[36] For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory for
ever. Amen.
_____________

Commentary:

33-36. God's admirable goodness, to both Jews and Gentiles, permitting them to disobey and then talking pity on them in their wretchedness, causes the Apostle to pour out his heart in words reminiscent of the Book of Isaiah: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts" (55:8-9). The designs of divine Providence may disconcert us, may be difficult to understand; but if we remember how great God is--he is beyond our comprehension--and how God's power and faithfulness overcome any obstacle man may place in God's way we will realize that the very things which seem to frustrate his plans actually serve to forward them.

The correct attitude of man to the designs of God is one of humility. This will lead him to realize that the mysteries of God, which are intrinsically clear, seem obscure to us, simply because our mind's capacity is limited. Therefore, as Fray Luis de Granada reminds us, we must avoid saying that "something cannot be because we cannot understand it [...], for what is more in conformity with reason than to think in the highest way of him who is the All-High and to attribute to him the highest and best nature that our mind can conceive? [...] So it is that our failure to understand the sublimity of this mystery has a trace and scent of something divine, because, as we said, God being infinite must necessarily be beyond our comprehension" ("Introduccion Al Simbolo De La Fe", part IV).
___________________________
Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland. Reprinted with permission from Four Courts Press and Scepter Publishers, the U.S. publisher.