Afterwards You Will Understand

“He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’ Jesus answered, ‘At the moment, you do not know what I am doing, but afterwards you will understand.’

“‘Never,’ said Peter. ‘You shall never wash my feet.’ Jesus replied, ‘If I do not wash you, you can have no share with me’” (John 13:6-8).

St. John has left us a detailed description of what happened at the Last Supper. The events of that night made a deep impression on him.

The focus is Christ. “He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded” (John 13:5).

The apostles are dumbfounded at the self-abasement of Jesus. Then Jesus comes to Peter, who is not disposed to be cooperative. “Lord,” he says, “do you wash my feet?” Jesus answered, “What I am doing to you now, you do not know, but afterwards you will understand” (John 13:6-7),

Peter soon submits to Our Lord’s ministrations, as do the rest of the apostles. Later, with the coming of the Holy Spirit, Simon will begin to fathom the meaning of that gesture of the Master. Jesus wanted to teach the pillars of His Church that their mission was one of service.

“What I am doing you do not know now.” The same thing that happened to Peter may happen to us. It is only afterwards that we may understand. We can find it difficult to understand many of the things Our Lord permits in our life: pain, sickness, economic ruin, unemployment, the death of a loved one…

Yet God’s plans are ordered to our eternal happiness. Our mind can barely make out the most immediate realities. We need to put our trust in the Lord, in His loving Providence, and the fact that someday in the future we will understand. Otherwise, we may only trust Our Lord when things are going our way. But we are in God’s hands. We could never find a safer refuge.

A Dutch missionary priest in Singapore liked to say that we are carried in the palm of the hand of a God who loves us (cf. Isa. 49:16). The day will come at the end of our life when Our Lord will explain His ways to us, down to even the most insignificant occurrences.

We are told in Scripture, “His ways are not our ways” (Isa. 55:8). Hence, we have difficulty understanding. That is why His words, “Afterwards you will understand” (John 13:7) can be helpful.

In the face of every setback, of every failure, of every incomprehensible event and blatant injustice, we can reflect on those consoling words of Our Lord: “What I am doing, you do not know now, but afterwards you will understand.” Then there will be no resentment or sorrow.

One writer says everything “that happens to us is foreseen by God, and is ordained to his glory and to the salvation of man. If what happens to us is good, God wants it for us. If it is bad, he does not want it for us, but allows it to happen because he respects man’s freedom and the order of nature; in such unlikely circumstances, it is nonetheless in God’s power to obtain good and advantage for the soul, even bringing it out of evil itself” (Federico Suarez, The Afterlife).

When we find ourselves beset by difficulties, we could say that simple prayer, “Lord, you know better. I abandon myself into your hands. You’ll explain it to me later on.”

Little children don’t look for complicated explanations. There was a teacher in kindergarten in the Philippines whom I knew, who had a classroom of maybe twenty or thirty three- and four-year-olds. Sometimes they would ask him all sorts of questions, and he found it useful to tell them, when maybe the answer was something they wouldn’t understand too much, “The reason is because.” As soon as he said that word, they were happy. “The reason is because.” Okay. Little children accept those sorts of answers.

We know that “everything works for the good.” St. Paul tells us that in his Letter to the Romans (cf. Rom. 8:28).

In The Forge, St. Josemaría says, “Woes? Setbacks deriving from one thing or another? Can’t you see that this is the will of your Father God, who is good and who loves you—loves you personally—more than all the mothers in the world can possibly love their children?” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, Point 929).

Our sense of divine filiation, that we are children of God, should lead us to discover that we are in the hands of a Father who knows the past, the present, and the future. He has ordered everything for our good, even though His plans may not coincide with our plans in this particular moment. That realization can help us to be serene, even in times of grave crisis.

In the first Letter of St. Peter, there is a phrase where he says, “Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you” (1 Pet. 5:7). No one could [do] a better job of watching out for us: God never makes mistakes.

I was in the company of the official secretary of the Pope one time about forty years ago, in the early years of John Paul II. Somebody in the group asked him, “How does the Pope manage to look so peaceful when he’s in front of so many people or talking about such important things?” The secretary said, “Well, he leaves everything in the hands of God.”

It was said of Pope St. John XXIII that he would often say to Our Lord in prayer, “Lord, it’s your Church, I’m going to bed.” Sometimes we have to leave things in the hands of God.

The people we know and love may let us down from time to time, but we know that will never happen with Our Lord, because He is infinitely wise and all-powerful. Ever mindful of our freedom, we are told in the Book of Wisdom, suaviter et fortiter—which means, with the gentleness and the firm hand of a father, He leads us to our eternal happiness (cf. Wis. 8:1). That is what really matters.

Our very faults and sins can be made to contribute to our welfare, because, St. Augustine says, “God endures absolutely everything for the benefit of his children. Even those who err [and] fall by the wayside can receive the grace to get up again and make progress in virtue. They will return to the fold humbler and more fitted and ready for the struggle” (Augustine, On Conversion and Grace). Contrition can help the soul to have a more profound and trusting love for God.

Insofar as we know ourselves to be children of God, life can become a continual act of thanksgiving. Every day in the Preface of the Mass, we are reminded that “Always and everywhere, we give you thanks.” That’s the right thing to say to Our Lord in all moments.

The Holy Spirit will teach us to see, even in what are apparent human catastrophes, a divine caress which can move us to gratitude.

“God,” says St. Josemaría, “is very pleased with those who recognize his goodness by reciting the Te Deum in thanksgiving whenever something out of the ordinary happens, without caring whether it may have been good or bad, as the world reckons these things. For everything comes from the hands of our Father: so though the blow of the chisel may hurt our flesh, it is a sign of Love, as he smooths off our rough edges and brings us closer to perfection” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 609).

Our confidence in God and the fact that we know that “afterwards we will understand” doesn’t lead us to be passive creatures, because we know we always have to use the means available to us.

Increased confidence in God and dependence on Him does not diminish our personal responsibility. Our Lord doesn’t want us to be lazy or negligent in our duties. We have to do battle with physical or moral evil, using the means available to us.

We well know that our struggle itself is pleasing to God and that it can be the source of many supernatural and human fruits.

In the event of sickness, we should accept it and offer it up to God. We should at the same time pursue whatever medical remedy is required: going to see a doctor, resting, taking the appropriate medicines.

In the case of injustice, social inequalities, and widespread poverty, we ought to join together with other people of goodwill in order to find practical solutions. We should react in the same way to ignorance and to obvious lack of formation. There could be nothing further from our Christian spirit than passivity in the face of deprivation, suffering, and need.

God is Our loving Father. He looks after us. He counts on us using our intelligence and common sense. He wants to work through the agency of our fraternal love. He has given us any number of talents, which we should not allow to rust in disuse.

We can be sanctified even when we apparently meet failure in our life. It may be that in a particular instance we could not have tried any harder. Our Lord will readily sanctify those so-called failures, but He cannot be expected to bless acts of omission or irresponsibility.

We could try to make a resolution to do whatever we see to be necessary in each situation and then say omnia in bonum!—“all things turn out for the good for those who love God” (Rom. 8:28).

Whatever the results may be, it should help us to love God more and to reinforce our union with Him. Through our divine filiation, we will encounter the protection and paternal affection which everyone needs and treasures.

St. Teresa of Ávila said, “Have confidence in him. Be of good heart, because His Majesty is very solicitous to what you need. Have no fear that you will be lacking anything” (Teresa, Foundations).

When we draw close to the Lord, we can win every battle, even those that appear to have been defeats.

There will be times in our life when God asks for heroic trust. What are signs that He may be asking that? Maybe our patience is tried for many years. There might be continual contradictions; goals and dreams may often be frustrated. We are innocent, but yet treated as guilty. We endure outrageous behavior from evil people. There is opposition from good people. Sometimes God allows the devil to tempt the soul.

Yet in a difficult moment, God asks us all to trust Him. The devil also appears and whispers words of despair, saying everything is lost. There is only failure ahead. You are doomed. Well, this is absolutely false.

These moments of difficulty are a sign of predilection, that God has chosen us—chosen us especially to bear the cross with Him. It is not a moment to despair, but to rejoice, to be peaceful in knowing that “afterwards we will understand.”

Why would the greatest arch-villain of humanity waste his time with whether or not someone prayed the rosary or accepts his cross? It must be that the act of faith is so extraordinarily powerful that he has to stop it.

The devil only attacks people who threaten him and his reign. Damned souls get everything they wish on earth because it is their heaven. The devil leaves them alone, for he has defeated them.

God’s children, on the other hand, may suffer for a short while, but they rejoice forever in eternity. A trillion years is not even an instant in eternity. Can we not suffer a little in this life, show God that we trust Him, and bring more souls with us to heaven, knowing that “afterwards we will understand”?

Our Lord wants us to have a supernatural understanding of trust. He says in St. Luke, “You will be hated by all because of my name, but not a hair on your head will be destroyed. By your perseverance, you will secure your lives” (Luke 21:17-19). These words can be very encouraging in difficult moments in our marriage, in our family, in our health, in our finances, in some contradictions.

All we have is our experience. All we know is the physical world in which we live. Our perspective is restricted by our senses, memory, and fallible human judgment. That’s why we can struggle so much with accepting God’s words. Our complete protection and security is in eternity.

Christians while on earth are subject to the most despicable outrages and crimes, crimes that appear to go unpunished. We can say to Our Lord, “Why don’t you just give in and answer my prayers? Why don’t you punish evil? How can you let the innocent and the good suffer so horribly?”

At the extremities of life, God may appear to act as a tyrant, demanding trust and obedience amidst the most horrible crimes. In those moments, trusting in God may appear insane or fruitless. But it is not so.

St. Faustina posed a question to Jesus. She says in her diary, “When once I asked the Lord Jesus how he could tolerate so many sins and crimes and not punish them.” He answered, “I have eternity for punishing these, and so I am prolonging the time of mercy for the sake of sinners. But woe to them if they do not recognize this time of my visitation” (Maria Faustina Kowalska, Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul).

No one gets away with anything. The good are rewarded; the evil are punished forever. The struggles we have to go through are a necessary test of our fidelity.

So we can ask Our Lord in our prayer to give us a greater spirit of trust and abandonment to His divine Providence, the fact that He is acting every moment of every day in our life. Where would we put our trust—in a human being or in God?

In the forging of the finest blade, it undergoes a process where it is hammered upon and scorched in fire. It is the same with the soul. God asks those He loves for extraordinary acts of trust. There are multiple ends to this forging of trust.

God wants the soul to rely on Him, not itself. It is not that relying on oneself is wrong or even sinful. It is just that surrendering to God, completely trusting in Him, reaps an extraordinary reward that will be revealed in heaven. “Afterwards, we will understand.”

God ultimately wants an act of complete abandonment to His Will. We are told in The Forge, “My Father, who art in heaven, look upon me with compassionate Love, and make me respond to your love. Melt and enkindle my hardened heart. … Burn and purify my unmortified flesh, fill my mind with supernatural light, make my tongue proclaim the Love and Glory of Christ” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 3).

At another Point, he says, “Let me not deny you anything that you ask of me. Let me know how to pray. Let me know how to suffer. Let me not worry about anything except your glory” (ibid., Point 122).

Contemplatives who walk the path for a long time understand that in the end, there is only God alone walking with them. No one on earth possesses a perfect understanding of our soul. No one cares like we want to be cared for. No one loves us as we’d like to be loved.

Sometimes a soul will feel as though they are completely abandoned by God and are floating in an abyss where nothing on earth satisfies. From the beginning of the Church, the Church has understood this experience as the contemplative path of abandonment.

St. John of the Cross postulated that this feeling of the abyss is actually a soul lost in the superabundant being of God. This terrible abyss of darkness is actually God’s infinite embrace. The soul is made to reflect God and is prepared to enter heaven.

Patience is often attached to trust, letting God tell us that “afterwards we will understand.” Virtue is revealed through time. For human beings, it is an opportunity to change and become more perfect.

In The Confession of St. Patrick, he says, “So indeed I must accept with equanimity whatever befalls me, be it good or evil, and always give thanks to God who taught me to trust in him always without hesitation.”

Patience is required to finish the journey to the end. God often tests the person’s patience to see if it is founded on feeling or the will. He wants us to trust in Him, especially when it is difficult. Consider the words that Jesus asked to be inscribed upon the image of Divine Mercy: “Jesus, I trust in you.”

We shouldn’t judge our life by what others think. Human measurement has some value, but it is imperfect in judging a person’s virtue or their place in eternity. Only what God thinks matters in the end.

Experiencing spiritual difficulty may be a sign of an advanced soul. Yet on earth, it is often seen as the opposite. Things never went easy for Christ, and He is the greatest of all.

We see many occasions in the life of Our Lady and St. Joseph, tough situations, going against the grain, but leaving everything in God’s hands, knowing that “afterwards they will understand.”

We can ask Our Lady that we might live our life like she and Joseph lived, having that trust and abandonment in the loving arms of Our Father God.

EW