Mr. Clark and his family were living in Scotland. He and his wife were working in a factory. They had nine children. They were planning to go as a family for holidays to a far off country. They began to save some money every month for this purpose for long years. When they had saved enough of money for a family holiday they were looking for places where they could go for such a holiday. There was an advertisement in the newspaper that there was a famous ship by name Titanic and it was leaving from Scotland to United States of America on 10th April 1912. When the father communicated this to the entire family, they were overjoyed and excited about it. They made all preparation for this long journey and booked tickets for all of them.
Unfortunately, one week before their departure their youngest son was bitten by a dog. Because of the possibilities of rabbis, he had been quarantined for fourteen days. They could not be able to make a trip to America as they had planned. The entire family was filled with disappointment and anger.
On 10th April 1912, the dream streamliner Titanic left the dock of Scotland without the family of Mr. Clark. Mr. Clark came to the dock to see the ship leaving and began to weep and curse God and his son for their misfortune. On 14th April 1912 night the mighty dream stream liner Titanic hit an iceberg and broke into pieces. About 1500 passengers died. This tragic news spread throughout Scotland. As soon as Mr. Clark heard the news, he hugged his youngest son and thanked God for saving the family. Now the tragedy for the family became a blessing. Although the family did not understand at that moment when things went wrong, but in fact it happened for their good. Sometimes blessings come to us in a disguised way as a problem.
Hindsight is the ability to understand and realize something about an event after it had happened, although we did not understand it at that time. Sometimes things don’t turn out the way we expected. Our experience tells us that God dispenses his blessings in a way we don’t understand at that moment. But when we look back we see that God did it for our own good. We often hear or read of instances where something bad or unpleasant happened which at that moment was seen as a misfortune. But later on that very misfortune was seen as a blessing. Hence we should not be stuck to it and be discouraged but we should take it well and go ahead trusting in the providence of God.
Since we are in the season of Lent, We must learn from the life of Jesus. He faced a lot of oppositions and difficulties in His public ministry. But He always surrendered Himself to Father’s will. We come across many crosses in our lives. On following the footsteps of Jesus and participating in His Pascal mystery, let us overcome our sufferings and sorrows.

Most Rev. Dr. M. Devadass Ambrose

Bishop of Thanjavur