‘On the Spot’ aims to highlight some of the complex positions, questions and comments experienced by Catechists, teachers and parents. It tries to outline the knowledge necessary to be faithful to Church teaching and which will best help those we teach who call us to account for the hope that is in us (see I Peter 3:15). This time we look at what ‘Providence’ may mean to those we teach, and we consider the distinction between Providence and the God who provides.

‘God’s Providence Is Mine Inheritance’. These words are to be found on the front of an old building in the City of Chester in the North of England. They can probably be attributed to those who lived in a previous building on the site and were spared from the plague. Others, most notably the Earl of Cork in the seventeenth century, have taken these words for their family motto, though I suspect that they may have been thinking of the words in a different light (‘Mine Inheritance is God’s Providence’), rather than expressing a trust in God to provide for the future!