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World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
One of difficult topics to comprehend in our Christian life is eschatology and judgement. We keep waiting in hope but also waiting needs a lot of patience while performing the Christian practices. We find the first Christian community struggling with this is the situation. Jesus had just resurrected and ascended to heaven and now they are in the last phase, waiting again for Jesus. We, too, are in the same waiting. The writer of the first reading knowis the anxiety that may creep in among the Christian community and warns them but also gives life directives. He reminds them to be self-controlled and clear-minded for prayer.
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Have you ever been driving somewhere with a tight schedule, feeling good about your trip, and then suddenly run into roadwork, see the orange-and-black sign, and a mystery detour? Yesterday morning, while driving to the audiologist’s office to drop off my Dad’s hearing aids, that’s what happened. At first, like all good Boston drivers, I was completely calm, well, not really! The detour increased my trip by about 5 minutes, but as I was speaking to the receptionist, the audiologist came out and asked if she could help. She told me she had just had a cancellation and could work on the hearing aids right away. Then she added something striking: “I heard your voice and remembered it.”
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There are two things in our lives as believers that are essential and yet complicated. That is; ambition verses divine calling. Ambition stems from individual desires to build a platform and achieve specific results. Calling stems from a form of surrender to God’s will to glorify God. Ambition often seeks control and personal legacy. Calling requires obedience and willingness to discern what the Lord is calling you for. Ambition often breeds anxiety and pressure “to climb the ladder”. Calling produces inner peace and contentment, even when the path is difficult.
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Today the Church gives us a saint tailor-made for this Gospel. Philip Neri, who was once the designated heir to a prosperous merchant empire in 16th-century San Germano, Italy. His uncle Romolo was wealthy, childless, and besotted with his young nephew. The boy had intelligence, charm, and business acumen. The inheritance was basically his to collect. All Philip had to do was show up and wait. But he left. Walked to Rome with nothing in his pockets and God on his mind, never looked back, and spent the rest of his eighty years evangelizing the streets of Rome one hilarious conversation at a time, shaving only half his beard to humble himself when people praised his holiness. He even ordered a priest who gave one beautiful sermon to preach the same sermon six consecutive times so people would think he only had the one. Philip Neri gave up a fortune and got Rome. That, is a hundredfold by any reasonable calculation.
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In one of the dialogues that we hold with our temporary professed members, this individual asked me a question that was quite challenging, and it threw me off a bit. He asked why or what makes us invite someone to leave the seminary when we read in the scriptures that Jesus gave second chance to people like Zaccheus and Peter, and even made Peter to become the foundation or the rock on which the Catholic church is built. After an extended period of silence and reflection, I responded something to the effect, that, for Peter he was more than willing to begin afresh, he was ready to engage in a loving, personal, relationship with Jesus after having denied him. Jesus asked him publicly three times as way of providing him with the opportunity to make a new beginning in his relationship with him. So, I told this gentleman that we ask people to leave if we see a persistent pattern coupled with unwillingness to work through transformation.
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In these past few days Jesus is presented in the gospel as giving last instructions before he departs from the disciples. Back at home, the schools that are run by Congregation of Holy Cross are private boarding schools. When parents drop off their children at the beginning of the term, you hear words like, take care of yourself, mind your behaviors, work hard, be careful, always talk to the warden if you need something from us. These are the kind of things people say when they are leaving or departing from school. Those words are always full of love for the child being left behind. What the parents are doing out of love is entrusting the future well-being of that child to himself or herself.
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