One of the most important teachings of Jesus is from the Sermon on the Mount, in which He teaches that all the hairs of our head are counted. In this He highlights that God is with us at all times. Even when we seem far away. We need to trust Him, which takes a life time of work. However, we also need to see this in context. When things go wrong, it seems that God has abandoned us. However, Jesus always assures us that this is not the case.
I want you to look at the second reading and notice it carefully. This is from the letter to the Hebrews. It is not written by St. Paul and we do not know who actually wrote it. What we do know is the obvious, it is written to Hebrews, what today we would call Messianic Jews. Jews who have embraced Jesus as the Messiah.
They begin to question their decision because they are seeing something go wrong. This leads them to discouragement. It is here the the writer reminds them that we are being formed by God our Father who will treat us as sons. That when things go wrong, it is a sign of His discipline. That means we should never be discouraged when things go wrong. God is not abandoning us. Second, we should realize when things go wrong that this is forming us for a deeper task.
I often remind people going to prison that what they are entering is a kind of spiritual chemo-therapy. Like
medical chemo-therapy, that kills many cells some healthy and the rest are cancerous, prison is a spiritual chemo-therapy. It works if the damaged elements of the soul are healed and that comes from making choices away from the evil embraced before, especially under pressure.
Better yet, when things go wrong, such as someone is arrested, or comes upon a serious illness, or the death of loved one, whatever the case may be, I ask them, a serious of questions.
1. If God came to you today and said He wanted you to serve Him would you say yes?
2. If He then said that what He wanted you to do would save someone’s life, but it would require you to go through some training, would you still say yes to Him?
3. If that training meant that you had to suffer (put current situation here) would you still say yes?
It is through our struggles that we are formed and we come closer to God. If we forget that they will lead us away from God. We will get discouraged that God did not operate on our terms and walk away.
Let’s go back to the text:
So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees.
Make straight paths for your feet,
that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed (Heb 12:12-13 NAB)
The people forgot that, they had become discouraged and were ready to quit. The author is saying, that the sign of God’s presence is not that things go right, it can be that things go wrong. Embrace that and embrace God through that and allow him to form you.
Remember, God is actually forming you everyday. The events around us form us to draw closer to Him, if we allow those events to happen to us. If not, the events draw destroy us.
Let me explain this to you. If you have clay and it is soft and malleable you can form it into anything. However, once it becomes hard it is good for nothing. It gets cast aside and never touched again. However, the clay that is formed into a beautiful cup, is kneaded, crushed, twisted, squeezed, cut, carved, shaped and so many other things that if they clay were alive would be painful. So it is with us. If we were useless in the hands of God, he would cast us aside and we would be free of problems forever. We would never change and would never be anything but what we are. However, God is always forming us, so we go through his forming process that is painful. The cup that becomes beautiful is the one that gives itself over to the process. The cup that hardens before its time is set aside.
The author of Hebrews is giving people a choice, either enter the process of formation or be set aside.
What is going wrong in your life that is discouraging you and that is preventing you from growing in the faith.
As Catholics we have suffered for almost nine years of a vicious attack on the Church seeking to silence our voice by those using a radical’s playbook. That instruction called to tear down the Church through her sins. However, what is happening? The Church is being formed a new, strengthened and brought to a new level of holiness. The Church will survive, and when we embrace her, we grow in holiness.
In the midst of the crisis, I became aware of many the agendas that were using the crisis to attack the Church and I traced them back to several political realities, none of which I will mention in a homily. However, when I addressed this with people in the secular world, I said that I was not concerned about the Church, the gates of Hell will not prevail against her, I was concerned about the country. The US or any nation does not have that same divine protection. Your trials are forming you for whatever trials are in store for us in this world, in this country and in our families. Embrace them in faith and in prayer and allow them to form you. Allow the discipline of the world to shake your world enough that God can put you through all the processes that change us to a beautiful element formed by Him.
St. Paul reminds us to rejoice in the Lord always and I have made the effort to rejoice when things go disastrously wrong. That puts trust in the Lord and allows us to be docile to his grace, those hands to put us through various painful proceses until the time that we are united with Him in the fullness of the glory to which we are called.
Remember, as Sirach says, it is in fire that gold is tested and worthy men in the crucible of humiliation. The one who suffers no pains has been set aside the one who suffers great pains at some time in his/her life is being formed for great things in this world and the next.
God Bless You,
Fr. Robert J. Carr
PhotoCredit: BigStockPhoto.Com Please click on pictures to access individual photographers profile pages.
Fr. Carr is an alliance member of the New Song Community (Canção Nova). He is the pastor of St. Benedict Parish in Somerville, MA and is the editor of this blog.
Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible with Revised New Testament and Revised Psalms © 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible with Revised New Testament © 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.