Setting Our Faces Like Flint and Bearing Fruit
“It was not you who chose me, says the Lord, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last.” (John 15:16)
A non-practicing Jewish woman, the primary caregiver for her elderly mother and disabled sister asked, “where is God in this pandemic?” This wasn’t the first time she had asked about God, nor was it the first time she had talked about her difficult life of struggles and doubts. “I read about Job like you suggested and I saw myself in him, but with everything going on in the world, I have to know where God is.”
Recalling the advice of my spiritual director, I reminded her of our common roots in the Old Testament and suggested that she read Isaiah 50. I explained that this chapter shows how God helps those (the remnant) who put their faith and trust in Him and not in themselves no matter how difficult are the circumstances of life. I spoke of the Suffering Servant referred to in Isaiah as Jesus, the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies and urged her to read Isaiah 53, one of the key Old Testament Scriptures pointing to the redemptive work of Christ. To further solidify this opportunity of evangelization, I sent her a YouTube video of a Jewish woman who came to believe in Our Lord as her saviour by reading Isaiah 53.
With sincere, enthusiastic gratitude, the woman said that these chapters have helped as she continues to struggle with her beliefs. Some parts “really struck a chord” as she looked back on moments in her life and saw how in time “it all made sense.”
This dark period of history in which we are living can be challenging even for those of us who profess belief in the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. But this is where He has placed us. In these difficult days, He has work for us who profess discipleship borne of the Love of God and neighbour, rooted in humble obedience to the Lord.
Before we can begin this work, we need to pray. St. Gianna Beretta Molla, a wife, mother of four and physician, wrote that “the stillness of prayer is the most essential condition for fruitful action. Before all else, the disciple kneels down.” A life or prayer – adoration, contrition, petition, thanksgiving – begins and sustains our life of discipleship, especially these days as we live with added worries and experience less human interaction. Trust in the name of the Lord and rely on God, urges the writer of Isaiah 50 because the Lord helps us and supplies for us as we look outside of ourselves and reach out to those around us.
In a world where the fear of contagion keeps us distant from one another and adds stress to our lives, where the proliferating face masks – their efficacy still debated, their use controversial – deprive us of the need to relate to each other’s facial expressions and appearance, and where no one has yet figured out a way to open our churches in a safe way – whatever that might mean – it’s not easy to convey God’s love to each other. But reach out we must, in creative, compassionate ways because this is what the Lord expects of his disciples at this time in history. This is our call to discipleship; our call to holiness. If we rely on ourselves, we will fail. If we set our faces like flint (Isaiah 50:7) and rely on the Lord, He will give each of us “the tongue of disciples, that I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word. He awakens me morning by morning, He awakens my ear to listen as a disciple.” (Isaiah 50:4)
These are dark times in which Our Lord calls us to witness with our lives hidden in Christ. But as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross wrote in her essay, The Hidden Light and Epiphany, “the more an era is engulfed in the night of sin and estrangement from God the more it needs souls united to God. And God does not permit a deficiency. The greatest figures of prophecy and sanctity step forth out of the darkest night.”
Remembering Father Alphonse de Valk
(Today marks the sixth anniversary of the death of Father Alphonse de Valk, C.S.B., a faithful, courageous and indefatigable Basilian priest, pro-life-and-family apostle, and the founder of Catholic Insight magazine. Here is what we wrote those on his entering into eternity five years ago, as we continue to remember him in our prayers and thoughts)[…]Continue reading→
Divine Mercy Sunday – An Echo of Every Mass
Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe’… ‘My Lord and my God!’ (Jn. 20:18)). Today is Divine Mercy Sunday, and as we celebrate the end of the Easter Octave, we contemplate the wounded side of our Saviour, the Church’s source of life. On Good Friday in the[…]Continue reading→
Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów
We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading→
First Holy Communion: Sermon from May 16, 1943
Here is a sermon from the good old days by +Rev. Msgr. Vincent Nicholas Foy (August 14, 1915 – March 13, 2017), from 1943. Readers may recall that Pope Saint Pius X, by the decree Quam Singulari in 1910, lowered the customary age of reception of Holy Communion – after the rigours of the plague[…]Continue reading→
In the Glorious Light of Easter, Alleluia!
Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory (Col. 3:3-4). The Resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour[…]Continue reading→
An Ancient Homily for Holy Saturday
The time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is one of waiting, in silence, as the world wonders – anticipates – what will happen, after the death of Christ. We re-live this time each year in the anamnesis of our liturgy, and in turn look forward to the glorious re-creation of all things at the[…]Continue reading→
Europe’s Long Descent
(As we meditate on this day on Christ’s burial, and His descent into hell, it is fitting to ponder here with contributor Peter Marcus how the world seems to be heading there as well. The difference is that, although God cannot ‘redeem’ hell, nor those therein, He can and did redeem the world. There is[…]Continue reading→
Pope Saint John Paul II’s First Good Friday Homily
ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE STATIONS OF THE CROSS AT THE COLOSSEUM Good Friday, 13 April 1979 When we make the Way of the Cross from one station to the next, in spirit we are always at the spot wherethis journey had its “historical” place: where it[…]Continue reading→
A Meditation for Good Friday: How To Undo the Effects of Sin?
Cardinal Newman, now Saint John Henry Newman, was a towering figure of nineteenth-century Catholicism who is almost universally admired. I say “almost” because not everyone likes him. I knew a priest once, Arthur Caulkins, who has become disenchanted with Newman. As an undergraduate Arthur had been enamoured of Newman, and this interest continued when he[…]Continue reading→
Pope Benedict’s Last Holy Thursday Homily
MASS OF THE LORD’S SUPPER HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI Basilica of St John Lateran Holy Thursday, 5 April 2012 Photo Gallery (Video) Dear Brothers and Sisters! Holy Thursday is not only the day of the institution of the Most Holy Eucharist, whose splendour bathes all else and in some ways draws it to[…]Continue reading→