Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me.
Recently Pope Francis was in surgery. He was on my prayer list during and after surgery. It seems that he is recovering very well. For those of us who are older we realize that we don’t bounce up as quickly from illnesses as when we were young.
It saddened me to hear that there were some who don’t like our present Pope and who were praying for a negative outcome.They were looking forward to a convening of a new Curia. Nonetheless, I am glad the Pope is doing well. I loved to hear that he sleeps in a dormatory with other priests and religious. No one should be absent from community.
Our readings for today give us a choice. It can be Saint Terese of Lisieux (aka Saint Terese of the Little Flower of Jesus) or Friday the 26th week in ordinary time. Looking at the readings for both, I noticed there was a common theme that flowed from each.
The themes were humility and obedience.
I saw a political cartoon recently dipicting the Pope. One political party said that even the Pope agreed with them on one issue and the other said NO NO he agrees with us on another issue. It was not funny but a comdenation of ourselves. The Pope is not on either side. He is on Jesus side. He is interested in following Jesus. Just like us the Pope is guided by the Holy Spirit. Venerable Blessed Bishop Fulton Sheen once said, “It is easy to find truth; it is hard to face it and still harder to follow it” .
This statement could keep me up at night.
Saint Terese was the same. She died at the tender age of 24 with some critics in her life as well. Her simple prayerful life wasn’t appreciated until the miracles occured after her death. She overcame her illness but wasn’t cured. She humbly accepted her illness and used it to glorify God.
So what do we learn from these two people that we can take with us today?
We learn that we have to be obedient to God’s word and authority. We learn from Bishop Sheen that we may know the truth (the Commandments) but it is harder to follow it. Our leaders are not perfect. Humility, helps us follow the truth. Obedience is a harder pill to swollow. Still we must be follow the truth.
We can’t all be great spiritual leaders but we humbly must follow the truth of God’s word. Today, I am working in my winter garden. It is a gamble to whether it will produce before a hard freeze. However, just like life there is hope in the outcome. Just like life we must follow the rules with simple steps every day. There are options to protect the plants given a warning by the weather man. It is not easy but as Saint Paul says this is a distance race and not a sprint.
God Love You Always
Bob Burford
PS: Please pray for Paul, Kathryn, Bill , Anna and all who suffer from Cancer
Picture Credit: “Pope Francis I” by Saints and Blesseds is marked with CC PDM 1.0
