Just before I
was ordained a deacon, I hurt my back and it caused me a lot of
trouble. It was the classic lower back injury that so many
people end up with. A few years later when I was working as a
hospital chaplain, I ended up talking to a one of the back surgeons
about it. Along with the various bits of advice he offered he
said: ‘Beware of anyone who promises to completely get rid of all
pain; it’s usually not possible.’ I thought this was very
wise. He said with physical therapy or different kinds of
treatment, most of the pain can be got rid of or managed, but hardly
anyone has the ability to completely fix you like new.
I read
something very similar a few days ago written by our present Pope
Francis. Before he was elected Pope and while working in
Argentina, he used to have a regular dialogue with a Jewish Rabbi
named Abraham Skorka. They decided to publish their
conversations which is now a book called Heaven and Earth. In
this book they deal with all kinds of issues. One of the topics
they mention is religious leadership. Cardinal Bergoglio (now
Pope Francis) says that we should beware of any religious leader who
demands absolute obedience or who promises perfect happiness in this world. There must always be room for us to
make choices because that is the freedom the Lord has given us.
No one has absolute authority over us, except God, and God does not
force us to do anything. Rather, God calls us to live a certain
way and to be in relationship with him, but we are free to make the choice ourselves.
For me as a
priest I am amazed at this stage (after 15 years) at how often I have been tempted to
quit and find an ‘easier’ way of life. I thought once I was
ordained that that would be it, faithful to the end. But I
realize as I go along that it requires a new commitment every day.
Mostly I don’t think about it, but there have been several crisis
points where I’ve really had to decide, ‘I choose to continue as
a priest’ and this was because I felt the Lord still calling me to
follow him, not necessarily because I felt I wanted to. Having said
that, I thank God that I am still working as a priest today; I
consider it the greatest privilege of my life.
I know that for
those of you who are married it is the same. It is an ongoing
commitment. We try to be faithful and we ask God to help us,
which is why we make vows. Without vows I think it would be
much easier to give in to the temptation to quit. Marriages and
religious vocations don’t always work out, but we do our best to
remain faithful; that’s all the Lord asks of us.
No matter
what way of life we find ourselves in, married, single, or
religious life, the Lord’s call to us to follow him continues in a
very personal way. This call to enter into relationship with
God, which is really what our faith is all about, is a very
mysterious thing. I often think that it is amazing how many
people still go to church at all, given the many excuses we could
come up with not to. So what inspires people? It is of
course the Holy Spirit of God speaking to each of us in our hearts, inviting
us to come to worship God, to receive the Eucharist, to keep coming
back even though we may often feel we could do better elsewhere.
I am reminded
of an episode of the Simpsons where Homer, the main character,
decides that he will not go to church this particular Sunday.
He stays at home and has the best day of his life, while his wife and
children do go to church, get caught in a snow storm, have to sit
through an abysmally boring sermon and eventually get home
exhausted. I laughed when I saw this because for many of us
that can sometimes be our experience. There always seem to be
more attractive things to do, even more worthwhile ways to spend
Sunday, but the truth is that God keeps inviting us to try and be
faithful, to keep coming back even though often little seems to
happen. It requires a sacrifice on our part, even if it’s
just a small sacrifice. But the Lord invites us to make that
sacrifice just for him. It is one way we can show our love for
God and each time we make the effort we are reminding ourselves that
we are not the most important thing in the universe. We try
always to put God first.
'Once the
hand is set to the plough, no one who looks back is fit for the
kingdom of God.'
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