When I was a kid one thing I was dead set against fortune tellers and palm readers. Primarily because the risk of potentially receiving bad news far exceeded the potential joy of receiving good news. This is actually in line with science, that tells us our brains are much more sensitive to bad news than good.
(Of course now we have DNA tests that can tell us too much future information in some cases.)
God, mercifully, usually doesn’t tell us these things in advance - except in the exceptional cases of Jesus and Mary. I can picture Jesus’s dawning horror reading Isaiah passages as a youth and realizing they applied to him. Lines like “he was crushed for our infirmities”, “surrendering himself up to death” and - even worse (?) for a God who cares about righteousness far more than us - “letting himself be taken as a sinner”. So he went to his baptism sinless and to his crucifixion flanked by sinners.
Similarly Mary learned that “a sword will pierce your heart” at the Presentation in the Temple.
The magic quote today was from Amigo de Frido who commented on the gospel passage that goes, “if you have an offering and recall something your brother has against you, go and be reconciled first with him and then make your offering.” The devastating line was: “God reconciled us by treating us as if we were the offended party.”
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