Making A Difference

 

Today was another hot (stay indoors) day, and sitting in my front room, I picked up some of the books there and read.  I guess I’d forgotten why I put these particular books on the coffee table there, but they are good reads, perhaps especially the words I read today:

“We easily get taken in by the sensational, and we wait for sensational events to strengthen our faith.   But the sensational only reaches our senses.  There are deeper levels where the senses cannot reach, and this is where faith is rooted.  At this level, wonders happen all the time, but they aren’t visible or unusual.

In fact, everything in creation is wonderful, the ordinary as well as the unexplainable.  Saint Augustine tells us that the feeding of the five thousand wasn’t more wonderful than what happens every day in each seed, just a little more unusual. But, he adds, God does unusual things from time to time to wake up those who sleep.  A dead person has been raised, and we all wonder about it.  So very many are born every day, and no one finds that unusual.  When we reflect more closely on it, we realize that it is a greater wonder that someone --- who was not --- is, than that someone who was, is raised.”
                                             This is the Day the Lord Has Made, by Wilfred Stinissen

“We must proclaim Christ by the way we talk, by the way we walk, by the way we laugh, by our life, so that everyone will know that we belong to Him.  Proclaiming is not preaching; it is being."
                                             Love: A Fruit Always in Season, by Mother Teresa

And then I re-read a letter which sat on my coffee table.  It was from the founder of an orphanage in the Philippines, and a man I consider a friend.  He sent me a letter from one of his former orphans there.  This former terribly abused child recently graduated from college (cum laude) and wanted to thank all who made it possible.  It was very moving, but I especially liked the quotes the founder included at the end of his letter:

What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.
                                             --- Albert Pike

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.  This is to have succeeded.                  --- Ralph Waldo Emerson  

Finding Jesus in Everyone

 

The Bible Study guys this morning talked about anger (Mt 5:22):  But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgement.  And then, So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go, first to be reconciled with your brother , and then come back to offer your gift.

I know I’ve noted before that there is another passage in Matthew commanding you to seek reconciliation if you have something against your brother, so if he has something against you or you have something against him, either way, YOU go to him to be reconciled.  That seems (to me) to be a strong emphasis against anger, and I’ve grown to try to live that command.  I don’t want to be angry or irritated at anyone, and so I try to avoid situations or conversations which will provoke anger or irritation in me, or others.   One of the ways I actively have done this is by tossing my television when it stopped operating a couple of years ago.  I thought there were mostly things shown there which raised irritation in me or would be topics of conversation which would irritate others.  All I hear today of our evil society seems to support that decision, and so I actively avoid thinking/conversing about those (in my mind) wrong things which cause anger.  But then I had another thought this morning, at mass.

The Psalm reading response this morning was an unusual one: “Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget You.”  The words got my attention, since they were not the usual/rote ones. And, perhaps because of the preceding Bible study on anger, I had thoughts of people I forgot, and how important each and every one is.

Of late, I’ve noticed how my brain is not as sharp as it once was.  It is not unusual for someone to greet me and yet I don’t recall their name or how we know each other.  The recent newly ordained priest said that I changed his life, but I couldn’t remember when we met.  And others have said similar things.  Perhaps my staying away from things and people which might anger me has not been a good thing.  As I left church this morning I saw the large banner picture of Jesus on the wall, with the words:  Finding Jesus among us; Seeing the face of Jesus in everyone. I guess that banner also says something more basic:  as long as we are alive in this world, we are changing the lives of people we come in contact with, or they are changing ours --- often in ways we don’t understand, but Jesus does.  In he Gospel at mass Jesus touched the leper, and healed him, exteriorly and internally.  Jesus restored him to the community.

I’ve written of people I influenced, but I had other thoughts this morning.  I recalled long forgotten memories of a friend who changed MY life.  I recalled our late nights at the jazz clubs, and the listening to special entertainers.  Once, (after after listening to Soupy Sales??) we went for a quiet summer’s walk, and as we passed a display window saw a nice rain slicker/coat, and she insisted on buying it for me.  I wore that coat again last week, and even then recalled events of that night.

Things and people I will never forget, but for people to remember us and the love of God we exhibit, we have to go out and meet them, especially the poor, the lonely, the forgotten.

When Things Don't Seem Right

 

I’ve always said intercessory prayers to St. Joseph, but in recent times they have become more focused, as I recognized him as a carpenter who can create new fixes to unique problems --- like mine.  I had a total ear blockage recently, which confused the doctor, but which totally cleared as I stood in front of a statue of St. Joseph at my local church.  But that was just the start.

Last week, while praying in an adoration chapel named in honor of St. Joseph, I thought about an invite I had received to the first mass of a newly ordained priest --- who I didn’t recall meeting.  The mass was at St. Joseph’s church in another town, but on researching, I found was a 20-mile straight line from the chapel where I prayed, and right on the corner of the crossroad.  I answered the invite with a question about where we met, and the (still) deacon John politely wrote back that he understood my forgetting because “you meet so many people”, but we did have some meetings, he said, and he read my blog.  I changed his life, he said, so he invited me to his first mass, and the family gathering afterward.  Family?  At the mass, his first sermon was very insightful; I may have forgotten him, but I will get to know him more in the future. 

Also last week, a friend had said to me that she was glad the Latin mass was gone “because nobody could understand it.”  I briefly explained how it was part of the global unity of Catholics and said that I still had the childhood missal that I used at mass on my coffee table.  Glancing at it, I told her how the mass words were in Latin were on the left pages, while the English translation was on the opposite pages.  I understood what was being said, despite not speaking Latin.  And it was then that I noticed the first page of that missal, which had my name and age (13), and that the book was named: The Saint Joseph Daily Missal. 

All these things about St. Joseph led my mind to perceive a unity about them, like the unity of the church.

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When I went Fr. John’s first mass, I was put off by the interior décor of the St. Joseph’s church where it was held.  Where things were and how they looked were foreign to me (kind of like that Latin mass to my friend, I guess).  There were no stained-glass windows, no vigil candles, and the few statues were “modern art” in appearance.  I didn’t “feel” like I was in a holy place, a Catholic church.  Before mass, I sat in the back reading my morning prayers, and I could hear people talking all around me --- but, their noise didn’t seem to bother me like at other churches I attended.  I perceived the noise as being friends and family speaking to each other; I perceived a quiet love there.  I had noticed that the choir area near the altar had lots of drums, and I expected loud modernistic music, in line with the décor, but at mass only a pianist played, and the choir and mass attendees sang hymns and psalms together in volume, one not dominating the other.  After mass, Fr. John thanked me for coming and for what I did for him “and people around the world” --- obviously referencing my blog.  We will have much more to speak of in the future, but meanwhile he prayed over me.

It was on the drive home afterward that I became more aware of the farmlands all around me.  Away from a large city, the people lived more apart, but as demonstrated at the church, seemed to know each other better than people at my suburban church.  I don’t pretend to understand it all, but the strangeness of the St. Joseph names, the church décor, the beautiful mass, and my meeting this new priest created within me an atmosphere of family, community, and belonging.  As part of his sermon, Fr. John had said that the focus of Christianity is not to avoid sin, but to love God and neighbor.  It all fit.

My life is not about me being in control or having things be as I want.  God is in control.  I may not understand all He does or permits, but my gift of life was given me with a simple commandment: Love God and love neighbor, as Jesus did.  Around the world, and in the farmlands of the United States, this love may look different, but if you could see the hearts of the people loving, and worshipping, they would all look the same.

“Do not keep judging according to appearances; let your judgement be according
 to what is right.”      --- Jn7:24

Do not be anxious.  Trust.  Grow in holiness.

“Nobody can remain the same when they realize that another loves them.”
                     --- How to Pray, by David Torkington (p71)  

 

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And this morning my men's group had a speaker from a new non-profit which in only a couple of years is spreading to other states.  Its name?  Saint Joseph Helpers.