Worthy to Suffer

"So they left the Sanhedrin rejoicing that they had been found worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the Name." Acts 5:41

"So they left...rejoicing that they had been found worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of The Name." Wow, when is the last time you rejoiced at being able to suffer dishonor for God? I'm usually not too happy about the slams to my faith or religious beliefs at work or in the secular world. 

Yet this is the stuff that saints are made of. As Father so beautifully said today (and I paraphrase his meaning) "even Peter had his shortcomings. He wasn't perfect, he probably felt like giving up when he was expected to go from a simple imperfect fisherman to leading and feeding Christ's whole flock, yet he didn't give up. He kept racing to Christ--swimming even--in order to do God's will: Come, follow Me."

There's quite a gap between denying God and rejoicing in suffering for His sake, but if St. Peter can pull it together and lead a whole Church as a human, I think we can take baby steps and keep working forward to follow Christ through all our trials with a light heart and a face uplifted.

Hey Open Up, I'm Knocking Here!

(Sunday, April 7^th)

"God, I don't know where I am going or what I am supposed to do, so please open and close doors, as You will, so that I can know where I am to go."

I think we've all prayed prayers at some point in time that we may or may not totally understand--even as the words roll off our lips. For me, the revelation of the later came after I heard myself complain shortly after praying that surrender prayer: “God, come on! What do you expect me to do? You gotta open up some doors here!”

Hmmmm, God’s gotta? and what about that first prayer, “open and CLOSE doors as YOU will”...? Kinda makes me wonder just how well I understood what I was actually praying.

I don’t know whether God was trying to test me by making me own-up to what I was praying, or whether He just really wanted me where He had put me by closing doors and opening others—not the doors I was expecting Him to change, I might add.

In this short-term trial, my frustration ebbed when I started seeing the fruits of God’s wisdom in keeping me right where I had been re-planted. In the long-term sense, the experience has pushed me to start praying more for strength, trust, and Faith in Him and His infinitely good plan. I don’t know for sure, but the next trial may not have such a quick turnaround time from frustration to harvesting the fruits of God’s plan.

From Brown to Green

The first time I heard about the Divine Mercy novena was when a kindly old lady handed me a leaflet outside the Cathedral in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia. We had just emerged from the Mass of the Last Supper on Holy Thursday and were standing on the front steps of the beautiful sandstone Cathedral in the Riverina city that I called home for 3 years while at college.
I was reminded of this today as our family recited the Divine Mercy together and it got me thinking about how even though the seasons are opposite, the emotions and anticipation are very much the same.

So back to Wagga and the old lady, I remember she rode up on a bicycle which she parked on the footpath and from a basket on the front she began handing out leaflets, tell everybody to be sure to begin the novena tomorrow (Good Friday).
We were all standing there in the warm evening, enjoying the last moments of the day and visiting (as we call it in the US) It was not unusual to ride to church on a bike, we were all in short sleeves , you needed to dress light for the Cathedral as they did not have air conditioning.

In the southern hemisphere,  Easter falls usually during the latter part of the Australian summer. We really don't have a fall season in Australia it goes from being really really hot to just warm then a bit cold. In New South Wales, the autumn is a time when the rains usually return after a long dry summer. This occurs, sometime between mid February and the end of April.  It is almost the polar opposite from what we have here in Ohio.

I say almost because even though in Australia they are headed into winter, surprisingly  for the people down under, Easter is still very much a time for renewal of spirit but also of regrowth in nature. With the autumn rains, they can look forward to green grass, some relief from the scorching temperatures of the summer and renewal of their green world which disappeared during the long hot summer. This is juxtaposed with our long winter in Ohio with frozen ground and short daylight, many hours spent cooped up indoors, avoiding the cold. We too long for the warmer weather and the return of leaves on the trees, green grass and the sound of birds.

So as we celebrate Easter together and recite the Divine Mercy chaplet one again, we are united not only by our renewal in faith in the risen Christ but also united in our joy at once again seeing our  landscapes being transformed from brown to green.

Fearing God

I have a new appreciation of the concept of "fearing the Lord" after an excellent homily by our visiting priest Fr John Curran LC. He told a story from earlier in his life when he had done something as a child and had gotten in trouble with his father. He reflected that when asked later if he was afraid of his father  he responded (now as a grown man) "I still am!"

Now I guess I had not reflected much upon the idea, but Fr Curran emphasized that "Fear of God" was really "Fear of offending God" this puts everything in a much deeper light. I asked father about that after Mass and he said it is right there in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I looked it up this morning and sure enough.

'It is in discovering the greatness of God's love that our heart is shaken by the horror and weight of sin and begins to fear offending God by sin and being separated from him." (CCC 1432)

This got me to thinking about my children and their relationship to me. Based on my understanding of "Fear of God" from before hearing this idea, I would have said that my children fearing me is not something that I would want. Now I think that it is.