One of the joys, and also frustrations, of celebrating
holidays when families expand and grow is the intricate dance of determining at
whose house to gather and who should be invited. Grandma has always done this, but Aunt Mary
wants to try that, and what about my side of the family, when do we fit them
in? These are real problems, but good ones, because we have options. We can choose to expand our house and include
others, or we can choose to limit our house to a select few.
As Isaiah reminds us, God doesn’t have that problem. God includes us all. The house of the Lord will be on the top of
the mountain and all will stream toward it, from all directions, each on their
own path. Who is in this human stream
seeking the Lord? The rich, the poor,
the strong, the weak, the sick and lame, the morally upright and the morally
corrupt, the victims and the perpetrators – in short, all of us, all 7 billion
of us now wandering around on this planet.
Are we close to changing swords into plowshares? Well, there was a recent report that we live
in one of the least violent times of human history. How can that be? I think it was based on the number of people
in conflicts as a percentage of the total population, so the growth in numbers
actually has made all of us a little safer.
We still train for war, and still spend a lot of our resources on it
(especially the US). But we also have
increased agricultural yields to un-dreamed of levels, we have eradicated many
diseases, we have provided educational and cultural and societal opportunities
around the world that could not have been anticipated a century ago.
So where is the Lord’s house?
Is it on top of a mountain, or is it in each of us as we strive to move
forward on the path that calls us to the Lord?
Don’t we really build the house of the Lord one small act at a time by
our reverence for each person, by our willingness to stop and help, by our
civility, by our recognition that the Lord is in each of us, and therefore we
all are in the house of the Lord in our every moment? Don’t we add to the house of the Lord when we
remember not only the victims of heinous crimes and acts, such as the children
harmed by pedophiles, but also when we pray for the pedophile, in whom the Lord
also resides? And don’t we chip away at
the house of the Lord when our anger, our frustration, our selfishness, our
greed, causes us to think only of ourselves and not of the other 7 billion
pilgrims on their own path to the house of the Lord?
I have to admit that I “chipped away” at the house of the Lord
this afternoon. I told Marilyn that I
would like to leave home about 4pm or so in order to get to Bakersfield by
8pm. It’s usually a 3 hour and 40 minute
drive. So, the loving wife she is, she made
sure my dinner was ready close to 4pm so I could have my favorite Thanksgiving
leftover—turkey tetrazzini—before leaving for another week. I was in a pretty good mood, actually, when I
left—not considering the fact that I hate having to be gone from home so much
for work. Everything on my drive was
going as usual, until about 20 minutes from home. Traffic stopped on I-5 to a standstill. “Uh oh,” I thought, “there must be an
accident ahead”. As I usually do, I said
a Hail Mary for the “victims” of the accident and settled in for the wait. As the traffic started moving again, it was
at between 15 and 30 MPH with brake lights flashing about every second
somewhere ahead of me.
After 30 more minutes, I realized I was in the middle of the
holiday traffic! It was bumper to
bumper, in-your-face-drivers weaving in and out and causing more congestion
than relieving it. I was getting really
frustrated and yelling at the other drivers, as if they could hear me. The more I screamed my frustrations out, the
more frustrated I became. I realized I
was not going to change the situation by being frustrated, but what was I going
to do? I asked the Holy Spirit to help
me calm down as I started praying the rosary.
As I got deeper in prayer, I became more aware of the fact that all of
these people I had been yelling at are also the Body of Christ and are simply
trying to get home after the holidays.
At that point, my frustration and anger just simply melted away and the
drive became more bearable, thanks be to God!
And so my prayer today is for the grace to better recognize
the needs of my fellow pilgrims and act toward them in a way that adds a small
piece to the house of the Lord as we journey together on our individual paths
to the Lord.
I found out today that my neighbor Darlene has breast
cancer. Please join me in praying a
novena to St. Peregrine on her behalf, and on behalf of all women who are or
have been affected by this disease. I
have placed the novena on the right
sidebar of this blog. If you want to
know more, or if you have cancer and want to pray the novena on your own
behalf, click on the saint’s picture. It
will take you to EWTN’s website with more on the Saint and the novena. Thanks.
I’ll remind you each day for the next eight days until the completion of
the novena.
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| Immaculate Heart of Mary, Pray for us now and at the hour of our death. |
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