Be not afraid

Yesterday was one of those days when I needed the readings that were presented, and I believe the Holy Spirit spoke to me through them in a special way. As you might have figured out by reading my posts, there have times when I have struggled with my own worthiness to be in formation. I have questioned, as I am sure many men have on the road to the deaconate, my own worthiness to be there. There are times when I have thought "I am not as holy as others, Lord, why choose me," or even (in honesty) "I am a cripple, Lord, what can I do to minister to others in your name that brings the Church to them." I have struggled with this at times with a full understanding that no small part of this comes from the devil, who delights at bringing discouragement to us. Even knowing that, however, it helps to be reminded that God's ways are not our ways, and that he doesn't work in the same way that we do, not even remotely-though he often uses human agents to do his work.

I thought of those times I have been discouraged about my own ministry when I heard the readings yesterday, and the thought of God's goodness overwhelmed me nearly to the point of tears as I listened to the vision of the Prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 6:6-8:

Then I said, “Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, holding an ember that he had taken with tongs from the altar. He touched my mouth with it, and said, “See, now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” “Here I am,” I said; “send me!”

The real a-ha moment came in the second reading, when St. Paul described his own unworthiness to exercise his special calling as an apostle when, unlike the other apostles, he didn't walk and talk with the Lord when he was personally present, and he persecuted the Church in his zeal, but he told the Corinthians in 1st Corinthians 15:8-11 that God put him in his office entirely because of his mercy and grace:

Last of all, as to one born abnormally, he appeared to me. For I am the least of the apostles, not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me has not been ineffective. Indeed, I have toiled harder than all of them; not I, however, but the grace of God that is with me. Therefore, whether it be I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

At this point, I felt like the Lord was hitting me over the head with a proverbial frying pan, as if to say: "Is this clear enough for you?" He was telling me that his concept of worthiness and mine might be quite different, even as I struggle with whether I am humble enough to be a deacon-but Paul struggled with humility too, and he was an apostle-far more important than I ever want to be. Then there was the Gospel, and the part that struck me was Peter and the Lord's words to him in Luke 5:5-11:

“Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets.” When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come to help them. They came and filled both boats so that the boats were in danger of sinking. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him and all those with him, and likewise James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners of Simon. Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him.

In Peter's words I could hear myself saying that very thing to Jesus "depart from me, for I am a sinful man." I could also hear Jesus' words in reply back to me "do not be afraid..." That may have been the most important thing Jesus said to Peter...it might have been the most important thing I heard in the readings yesterday, something that the Lord knew I needed to hear.

I woke up this morning to the news that the Holy Father will resign, effective February 28th. Perhaps that is one of the many reasons why I needed to hear "be not afraid" yesterday, because today my first thought after hearing the news was "Lord, what are we going to do now?" Yes, I know the canonical procedure quite well, I know we'll have a conclave and a new Pope, and the Church will role on. It doesn't make the situation any easier for those of us who love and appreciate Pope Benedict XVI, but I am open to the reality that the Holy Spirit may be doing something new. The Holy Father has, I believe, acted under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and we should continue to pray that the Holy Spirit guides the Church through this time and that the College of Cardinals meets with the power of the Holy Spirit very active among them under the protection and intercession of Mary, Mother of the Church.


Finally, I have a request for those of you who are regular readers of this blog. As you may be able to see, I've placed a clock on the left hand sidebar of this blog. I'll have more to say about the clock and why it is there in a special entry I am composing for Ash Wednesday, but the clock used in the widget is not my first choice of a clock. There are a couple of other clock widgets I would prefer (one is from Clocklink), and I could insert one of them by incerting the HTML code in the proper place-but blogger has changed its HTML code since I have worked with it, and I can't figure out where in the code the sidebar is located! I need a hand with this. Feel free to e-mail me if you can be of assistance.