theROCK

Miracles of the Cross

Many of you know one of my favorite saints is Padre Pio. Just recently I finished a book about this fascinating man. He is a modern saint who died in 1968 and many miracles were attributed to him during his life. People would travel from across the globe to seek and beg for his intercession while hundreds of letters arrived each day with the same hope.  

One particular day, after meeting with yet another person asking for his intercession, he turned to the friar standing next to him and said, “Son, you’ve seen everybody asking Padre Pio to help them with this and that. I wish somebody would say, ‘Padre Pio, pray that the Lord might help me to bear the cross.’”  

Each one of us carry crosses we would rather not, and we often wish that these crosses would just go away. I know I do. I have prayed or wished many times for my crosses to be taken away and I am sure you have too. How many times have we wished that a particular coworker would simply leave the company? How many times have we prayed that an illness would just go away? How many times have we begged God to take away a particular weakness we have?  

These are not bad things to pray or wish for, even Jesus prayed that God might take his cross away if it be His Will (Luke 22:42). However, Jesus also prayed that if this cross should not be taken, he would have the grace to carry it well, and carry well he did.  

Padre Pio reminds you and I that sometimes there are crosses we are invited to carry and never get rid of. We can get so caught up in the miracles, the times when the cross is taken away, that perhaps we miss the subtle, more impressive miracles. The miracle of someone who has gone through the worst and whose heart is still able to love, the miracle of seeing a Simon come forth to help carry our cross, the miracle to love those who push our buttons and even hurt us. Maybe these are the miracles to pray for, to pray to God for the miracle to bear our cross well. We may be surprised at just how many miracles we see. 

Only All for Jesus

Every day, I begin my day in prayer. The routine is very simple but well-rehearsed. It is the same prayer I have had for the last nine years. As part of my routine, I pray that I be the vessel by which the Lord fulfills His work. It is a prayer of surrender. Surrendering is not new to me, I have lived my life in surrender to Jesus Christ since I was sixteen years old. When I get that "feeling" it usually falls in line with a moment of change, a moment of conversion at the climax of surrender. We are meant to go through multiple conversions throughout a lifetime as we grow into a deeper relationship with Jesus by surrendering to His will. I recently had one of those moments that moved me deeper into conversion resulting, once again, into surrendering. It is then that I started having that "feeling". I am now left waiting to see what the "feeling" is going to bring. Since my announcement to transition out of the principalship, many have asked what I am doing next. I truly do not have a “next”. I am open to the will of the Father. He will make my path clear but until then, I am here.

Many Saints write about conversion and surrender, as it is a pathway to holiness. St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta would say, "We have to love until it hurts. It is not enough to say I love. We must put that love into a living action. And how do we do that? By giving until it hurts". This loving until it hurts is conversion. It is surrender because it is counter-cultural. St. Faustina brought us the depiction of surrender through the image of the Divine Mercy and the simple yet powerful prayer "Jesus, I trust in you!" Releasing oneself to the will of the Father is liberating yet terrifying.

It is not enough to say yes to God when he has called us for himself. It's very important to put that “yes” into a living action. And how do we put that into a living action? By our total surrender to Him. We understand that He has chosen us for Himself - all that follows is that we allow Him to use us without consulting us. We are human beings and we like to know exactly what He wants, how He wants, and so on. But if we really want to be only all for Jesus, it is important that we give Him a free hand to do with us what He wants, as He wants. Only then can we really say we are only all for Jesus. - Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Thirsting for God, 2000. 

Trust in the Mission

Living in the age we do, with all its technology and modern convenience, Jesus’ summoning the twelve, at least for me, is a little hard to swallow. It’s hardly the alluring advertisement for evangelization and disciple-making candidates! No food, no money, just a walking stick and sandals! Not even a second shirt! But if you dig a bit deeper, you hear that “Jesus gave them authority…” Read: Jesus gave them the tools they needed. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the first disciples—fishermen, tax collectors—all ordinary folks. We are all called to be disciple-makers. What the gospel tells us is in order to become that, we need to divest ourselves of what keeps us from sharing the Good News. When we do that, the Lord equips us with what we need, just like Amos, again an ordinary person—a shepherd and arborist—who the Lord sent forward to ministry. And just like the apostles, God meets us where we are, gives us the tools we need, and sends us to be his hands and feet and voice. “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet, but yours.” (Teresa of Avila) As we walk with our walking stick and sandals, let us pay particular attention to how we can be Christ visible in the world. How will we let the Lord meet us where we are? Where will we be his hands, his feet, his eyes, his compassion in the world?