The fascinating story of a baby lodged in a papyrus basket amid the bull rushes and rescued by the maid servants of the daughter of Pharaoh, the very man who had ordered the murder of all the Hebrew male babies.

Despite the machinations of this evil ruler in Egypt, God was powerful enough to bring his plan to completion through Moses. The story is the stuff of Movies, Cecile B Demill's classic and more modern adaptations, but it is also the story of real life.

The Egyptians were a highly cultured people, and God made use of their erudition to bring about the training of his servant, Moses. It was equally necessary for Moses, as it is for all of us, to come to a realization of his own identity and mission.

God began to accomplish this realization in Moses through a rather unusual episode, in defending one of his fellow Hebrews and murdering an Egyptian. His subsequent panic and flight were all part of God's plan.

As these events transpired, it is hardly likely that Moses understood what or why these things happened, any more than you or I understand some of our own dilemmas. Only later upon reflection with the grace of the Holy Spirit could Moses realize God's hand at work in his life.

St. Bonaventure was baptized Giovanni or John, but legend has it that even as a child he was given the nick name Bona Ventura, meaning Good Fortune. He joined the Friars Minor at age 20, studied and later taught both philosophy and theology. He and Thomas Aquinas who died en route were named papal legates to the Council of Lyons, which attempted but failed to reunite the Latin and Eastern rites of the Universal Church.

In spite of his reputation for holiness, humility, and virtue his canonization was delayed for almost two centuries because of political disputing within the Franciscan Order.

As we go through our life, many ordinary and perhaps some extraordinary things may happen to us. Some make obvious sense and others appear to have no reason behind them. In this liturgy God calls us to look up to heaven with a faith convinced that everything about our lives is guided by his great wisdom and according to his magnificent love for us.