St. Paul tells us in his first letter to the Corinthians that he encourages us to imitate him since he also imitates Christ. If he does not try to imitate Our Lord his moral authority over the people would practically disappear.

The three readings in the mass today show us this importance. Solomon asked for the ability to distinguish good and evil. In the second reading St. Paul tells us to ask to be saved. The Gospel tells us to ask that God give us the pearl of great price and the treasure in the field, i.e., the discernment of what God wants us to do in this world and for which God created us.

God did so to make it easier for us to know what we needed to do to do good and avoid evil. As the situation of man was debilitated because of original sin, man needed assistance to know accurately God's Will in the Decalogue. Without this aid man would have tended to commit errors in getting to know God's laws, not everyone would be talented enough and have the necessary time to analyze his experiences to distill from them the way to please God in our behaviors.

God saves His people and He fights for them.

It is such an important revelation about who God is when in the first reading of today's mass for the 16th Week in Ordinary Time tells us that God offers us forgiveness as long as we repent of our sins. He is ever ready to forgive us.

God does not forsake his chose people. He sends Moses as his instrument. As usual when God chooses someone, that someone brings up an objection. But God prevails by saying He will accompany Moses.

The story of how Moses was born, the circumstances he was born in and how he survives as a baby and becoming the son of Pharaoh's daughter is illustrative of God intervening in our world.

God's omnipotence means that His Will is uncontested in the universe. No creature can resist His all powerful Will. However, His only weakness is a created will like us and the fallen angels who can elect to be proud and disobedient. But even then God power accomplishes its purpose especially because He can get good from evil.

We need this virtue to counteract the root cause of our pride and disobedience to God's Will.

The preparation we have been undertaking these days with the first readings of the masses include the understanding that although our Lord does not need any of us to accomplish His Will, He has wanted to count on our contribution, our free correspondence to His divine inspiration and action in our souls. What a privilege! Thanks be to God that He has wanted to depend on us also!