The "Spirit speaking beforehand"

 Today is the feast of St. Matthias, who replaced Judas.  In today’s first reading, Acts 1: 15-17, 20-26,  we are told that “…the Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand….”  If in the time of the early Church, the “Spirit spoke beforehand, ” and God did, don’t you believe that God speaks beforehand in your life and mine as well? I believe that wholeheartedly, not that it is easy to accept God’s providence and designs for our lives, especially when we do not fully understand what God is doing or why God did what God did in the histories of our lives.  But, for instance, we know that when God met Adam and Eve in the garden after they failed to trust Him, He already had a solution for their disobedience, when He announced to Satan: “I will put enmity between you and the Woman, between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head while you will strike at his heel”  (Gen. 3:15).  Satan’s head was crushed by Jesus from the Tree of the Cross, the Tree of Life that replaced the Tree of Good and Evil in the Garden of Paradise.  The plan of salvation is always active. As of old, we, too, move in and out of obedience to God, in and out of truly trusting God.  God does not cause the disasters in our lives, especially not those that are of our own doing, as in the case of Adam and Eve. But God does intervene. He has a plan for our salvation in every event of our lives and the life to the Church today just as in the past when Peter and the first apostles followed Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life.