Isn't it amazing that on the tenth anniversary of jihad on our country, the readings today are about forgiveness? With Christ and faith, ALL things are possible.
My oldest daughter (29) called me this morning as she was watching the tributes to talk about that fateful day in 2001. She left the nest a few short weeks before to live at college. She reminded me that I called her cell phone shortly after it happened and told her to wake up, get out of bed and find a priest to seek the Sacrament of Confession. I have no recollection of it, but we had a good laugh over it being just like me to think about salvation, being prepared to stand before Christ, sinful and sorrowful in that moment. She told me her college roommate remembered it with her over the last few days, as well.
Right afterwards, she spoke about a homily she heard yesterday. The priest teaching about the Sacrament of Baptism told the people in the pew nothing about the pardoning of original sin. He said the Sacrament of Baptism wipes away FUTURE sins.
Why... this enlightenment should be spread all over Christendom: There is a magical priest in Boston! His Baptisms wipe away every sin you commit from birth unto death!
We simply must arrange pilgrimages from all over the world to this man!
I forgot to ask her how old the priest was...my guess is 60-ish or he is a product of our seminary of Weston as that drivel has not been taught at St. John's for quite some time.
What are the odds there are people driven to Sacrament of Confession to prepare their souls in that place?
Lots of luck to them in these upcoming days of purification.
Anyhow, I wanted to pass something along to you that I read earlier this week in The Likeness of Christ. (Especially since it was timely for me and go along with this week's readings.)
From Thursday's readings:
Brothers and Sisters: We know that all things work for the good of those who love God, who are called according to His purpose. For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called; and those He called he also justified; and those he justified he also glorified.
The chapter in the book focuses on The Three Kings of the Orient who traveled to see the face of God. How many failed to recognize Him in the humble circumstances of poverty. How each one of us fails to see Christ and the daily epiphanies in our own lives surrounded by poverty of mind and spirit.
There are daily Epiphanies in our lives. The grace of God is ever pointing out to us where the Child is. And we at the outward circumstances, the mean disguises, the, to us, unworthy surroundings; we decide that God cannot be THERE were the star stands, and so we pass on and miss the Manifestion. God is always wrapped in the same garments in which He was enveloped at His coing into the world and in His passage through it. To us, He always presents Himself in what thwarts the concupisences of the flesh, in what contradicts our self-will, in what wounds our self-love, in a word, in pains, and trails, and disappointments, in sorrow, in opposition and in failure. He expects us, as he expected the kings, to recognize Him under these habiliments. Every cross as it were, a reliquary containing God. If we embrace it with faith it will open and reveal His Presence to us. When too much influenced, too much governed, too much determined by human external appearances, we decide that surely God could not and would not take such a form for His Manifestations, we fail in faith, we have not the docility and the simplicity of the Magi....Jesus comes to us in everything that ends to mortify our self-love and our pride, in everything that tends to break down the obstacles that prevent the development of our interior life, our growth in the vision and in the love of God. He manifests Himself to the religious in the uncongenial task, the irritating opposition, and in the uncouth companion -- in all the multiple disabilities, annoyances and inconveniences arising for us from the failure or imperfection of creatures. But at every conjuncture God wishes us to discover Himself, however disconcerting be the guise in which He comes. It is not easy---it requires a strong faith to see Him in the long, dull sequence of squalid, obscure and pointless miseries that condition our daily lot. In the dullness and weakness of our faith, we pause disconcerted before the humble appearance; we decide that God is not there and pass on our way...
Seeing the state of things in the world and in the Church..it's something to keep in mind in days ahead of us...least we trip and fall ourselves and land in the pit. Be on your toes...as
Wrath and Anger are Hateful Things, Yet the Sinner Clings Them Tight
Rather...some great advice from Fr. Worthley: Be merciful to others, just as Christ is merciful to you. If you forgive others from your heart, you will win. If you do not forgive others, you will lose.
1 comment:
ahhhhh, now that's a Sunday meditation! Thanks.
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