Lord, if you Will (daily)

Today, we celebrate the feast of St. Joseph, a feast that invites us to reflect on the nature of work itself, the work that each and every one of us do, and to see how from it we seek to build up the community, each doing his or her share so that together we work as one entity, a collective unit of work. While Pope Pius XII originally instituted this feast in response to “May Day,” a celebration of work by Communists, he wanted us also to see within it how we are called to build up the larger community and serve those who are in need of a service.

Yet, it also calls us to remember something more as well, that work is more than fulfilling our job that there is a spiritual dimension to it as well.

Earlier today, I placed a picture upon my facebook page (yes, I have facebook). It was an ashen cross surrounded by the words that many of you will hear shortly: “Remember, that thou art dust…and unto dust shalt thou return.” And, one person responded, and what he said was telling, especially, in this day and age.

Today, we celebrate the memorial of St. Jerome Emiliani, a lesser known saint whose legacy rests in caring for orphans and abandoned children.

However, his life, as many saints, did not begin in this way, in fact, it began when he was chained in a dungeon who, before that, was in charge of a great army and stood as one of the great military leaders in Venice. Yet, he was so confident in himself that He neither cared nor believed in God.

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In our Gospel today, Mary stands as a perfect model of what Jesus speaks about today. For, she has that power to tread upon serpents, scorpions, and the full force of evil. In fact, St.

11 years ago today our lives were changed.

We witnessed the worst that human beings are capable of, watched as our world was transformed as we lost thousands of people in an instant, collectively all experiencing the same things: fear, anxiety, anger, frustration, and most of all, sadness.

In the midst of this all we wanted was to experience some consolation some hope, and we still seek that today.

When we put our faith in God all of our fears vanish, because faith demands that we trust God completely, so much so, that when He asks us to step out into dark and rough waters we don’t question, but rather, literally, walk by faith.

St. Peter only lost his footing when He looked away from Christ and allowed fear to overtake him. He stopped believing and living by the possibilities that only God can bring and started to get scared.

In 1864, a man who was born in Belgium by the name of Joseph De Veuster, the seventh child of a corn merchant, took the name Damien when he joined the Sacred Heart Fathers. In 1864, he was sent to Hawaii and was, subsequently, ordained a priest.

While he was there, given the frequency of traders and sailors, many new diseases and ailments were brought to the island, so that many were afflicted with the flu, syphilis and leprosy.

In order for us to be forgiven we must always and constantly be willing and able to forgive, not once, not twice, not three times, but seventy times seven, which, in biblical terms, is indefinitely.

And, to do so for no other reason than the fact that we, if we are honest, are never in a position to withhold something that was freely given to all of us. In fact, St. Ambrose said: “For when the Lord forgave all sins, He made an exception of none,” which is why we, too, must do the same.

Today, we begin our definitive journey into Lent, tracing, as we do, an ashen cross upon our foreheads, a symbol that hearkens back to the days of the Bible indicating penance, mourning and even our own mortality.

Faith is a very interesting virtue, because with it we can believe the most extraordinary and the most amazing things, and yet, at the same time, have doubts or questions or not believe as much as we think, so that we find ourselves both believing and not believing at the same time.