One of the first stories I ever wrote, I dedicated to a woman by the name of Bobbie Nelson and to her husband Richard. Bobbie was not famous or as her name would imply a country singer. She was a simple woman, who ministered to those in the Navy. She was not appointed to the position. She just did this as a committed Christian woman in service to the world including the sailors at the Long Beach, California, Naval Base. A prayerful, evangelical woman who was so filled with faith that she lived it bravely. But I feel that many in our society would look down upon her because she was a simple woman despite her powerful faith. She lived the Gospel as it was written.
My favorite story about Bobbie Nelson is that she ministered to her next door neighbors. Now realize that the Long Beach Naval Base was basically part of the city of Long Beach which is almost a suburb of Los Angeles. Many of the TV shows at the time were filmed there. The Pacific Princess moored nearby in San Pedro and that, was the home port of the ship and the program based on it: The Love Boat. TV shows were filmed all the time in Long Beach because it is so close to Hollywood. Well also in Los Angeles is a host of notorious motorcycle gangs. Bobbie and her husband Richard lived next door to one of them. She related to us that she would say to them everyday that she was praying them into Heaven. She baked them birthday cakes and all kinds of things to a rather notorious motorcycle gang.
Now how many who study sociology at Harvard University would consider that a good idea? I don’t know and she would not care. She cared about one thing living the Gospel of the Lord. A simple woman who challenged the criminal and the super educated at the same time, while being an inspiration to many.
I know of another woman who died recently. A divorcee, she chose to became nun and then became a prison chaplain. She was so much into the work that she actually not only worked in the prison, she lived there. What makes it fascinating is that although she was from the United States, the prison where she worked and lived was in Tijuana, Mexico. Her name was Sister Antonia. The Federales, she told us, informed her that she lived with and ministered to some of Mexico’s most dangerous prisoners, but she never had a problem with them because she was living the Gospel. Another simple woman who challenged the criminal and the super educated at the same time while being an inspiration to many.
The driving force of both women is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to lead people to salvation. That simple goal is considered foolishness to many. But to these women it was their mission. They inspired many including myself.
St. Paul in today’s Gospel says that God chooses the weak to shame the strong. He chooses the foolish to shame the wise, and the lowly and despised to shame those of high esteem. This does not say much for any of us. God called each one of us. However, if we look at it a different way, it says a lot. We are not perfect, we are not great and many consider themselves weak and if we went to Jesus and complained to him about all the reasons we should not be his disciple, he would reply that this was exactly the reason why he chose us. This means that he chose you to be an inspiration to others and lead them to salvation and your excuse of why you should not be such a disciple is exactly the reason why he chose you.
If you in your weakest moment seek to be a disciple of Christ nonetheless and turn to him for help to be such a disciple, you are glorifying him just because you do not give up despite your weakness.
The Old Testament tells the story of Gideon who defeated the Midianites using 300 men. He was told by God to send home almost 30,000 men and fight the entire midianite army with only 300. The reason because he would know when the Midianites were defeated that it was by God’s hand they were defeated not by Gideon’s skill.
We stand before the Lord and respond to his call to do his will not because we are great and powerful, but because he is and when we seek to do his will we do powerful things. When we seek to rely on our own wisdom, we do stupid things.
One example I have is that of a group trying to change the Church to one more with teachings more friendly to the American liberal community. They would tell me that there was a problem with Latinos because you know they are uneducated and they are naive. To this day, I consider this group of highly educated members of the left wing to be the most racist group, I ever encountered, I won’t even begin to address how incorrect they are. Yet they are clueless in their complete dismissal of Latino Catholics, unable to see their own prejudice.
One of my favorite examples on the other side of the weak becoming strong is found in the book the Cross and the Switchblade. The pastor David Wilkerson wanted to work with gangs in New York. However, when he drove to a tough side of Manhattan he ended up being completely embarrassed in front of the gangs. He parked his car in a no parking zone and if I remember correctly gave the police officer a hard time and was arrested right in front of the gang related youth he planned to evangelize. At that point, he felt that his mission to help evangelize gangs failed because he had been made a fool in front of the police. Much to his shock, it had the opposite effect, it opened a door for him to evangelize the gangs because the arrest made them see him as one of them.
God uses all parts of our life and the more we find we are not the person he should call, the more we realize that we are exactly the person he calls and for that seemingly disqualifying reason, provided we struggle to give ourselves to Christ despite our weakness and lack of success.
God bless you,
Fr. Robert J Carr
Fr. Carr is member of the Segundo Elo of the Canção Nova Community. He is the pastor of Holy Trinity Quincy, MA and is the editor of this blog. He is the author of several books, blogs and hundreds of videos all of which you may find on Youtube. You can follow him on twitter as @frbobcarr and on Google plus as+FrRobertCarr, his website is Carrbooks.us Thoughts, comments on the homily? Let us know at Facebook