I resolved to self-quarantine over a week ago, as I wrote
here. Yet today I broke that
resolve. I called a woman I know, who
was celebrating her 84th birthday today, only to hear she was
celebrating it alone. I know this woman;
this woman is a wonderful person God put in my life. Without hesitation I tossed aside my resolve
and said: “Well, I’m coming over for dinner.
What can I make?” And I proceeded
to make her favorite dish; I had all the ingredients. After dinner at her house, she wanted to show
me pictures and play games; it was impossible to keep any distance, and
thoughts about contagion flicked in the back of my mind. When I finally left, I came home and cleaned
thoroughly, changing clothes. And I went
to the adoration chapel to say my night prayers --- the one thing I resolved to
still do, despite my quarantine. Yet,
for the first time I can ever recall, at this late hour, someone else was there
in the small chapel. So, I went home, to
pray my night prayers alone in my home, not His. It’s been many years since I didn’t end my night
in His house, but as I prayed, I felt Him telling me that I WAS in His house,
when I visited that woman.
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Earlier this afternoon, as I was preparing the carry-out dinner
at my house, a friend called. She and I
had worked to develop the PORCH program --- Providing Others Renewed Confidence
and Hope --- in our community. A couple
of years back God put a woman in need in my path and said “You need to help
her,” and that was the beginning of a journey which led to PORCH, which matches
lonely people in our community with neighbors who want to love them. The program is only a couple of months old,
but is running extremely well, although we are making adjustments as we learn
new things, with the intent to roll all the details out to other communities by
the end of the year ---- or, that was our plan.
My friend called to tell me that she had been in on a state-wide video conference
call, to discuss steps which might be taken to reach the elderly who might be at
risk of the Corona virus, to determine if they were well, and had any
needs. The conference encouraged text
comments and questions to the presentation, and my friend texted what we had
begun in our community with PORCH. And
she told me that as a result, we won’t be waiting until the end of the year to
roll out our program; the response to her text was immediate from many other
communities: What are you doing? How did you set it up? Can we get details so we can do the same to
reach our seniors?
It’s funny how God works, isn’t it? He told me “You need to help her,” and we
began something two years ago which rolled on way beyond our plans, or
control. It’s always obvious to my
friend and I Who is in control of this program.
And we give Him thanks. What we began
two years ago was planning for what is happening now. If we had known God’s plan for this, we
certainly would have gone about things differently, and likely screwed them
up. As it is, He’s in control. No problem.
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And another place where God is, is in our prayers. He speaks to us. Tonight, as I prayed my night prayers at
home, I heard Him speaking clearly, as I read some of the meditations:
“There is no difficulty in our
lives for which God does not know the solution.
From all eternity He has foreseen it and has the remedy for each case,
no matter how complicated the situation may be.
However, sometimes in difficult circumstances He seems to leave us alone
as if the outcome were to depend on us, but He does this only to test us. He wants us to measure our strength against
the difficulty --- which makes us more aware of our weakness and insufficiency
--- and He wants us also to exercise our faith and our confidence in Him. The Lord never really abandons us unless we
forsake Him first. He only hides Himself
and covers His actions with a dark veil.
This is the time to believe, to believe firmly, and to wait with humble
patience and complete confidence.”
--- Divine Intimacy, Meditation 119
“Christ: If only you could understand how brief this
earthly life is! Time is so short. Eternity is always at your side. Everything that happens to you now, every
opportunity I send you, every invitation I give you, is a chance for you to
expand the capacity of your soul to love by exercising self-forgetfulness and
self-giving. And the more you expand
that capacity, the more I will be able to fill you with the light of my glory
when you come home to my Father’s house.
Think more about this. Work for
my kingdom as if you had little time left to do so, because the truth is that
you do have little time left, so little time!”
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