Blessings to you my
brothers and sisters in Christ.
We have been raised to life with Christ,
and we must now seek the things that are above, Alleluia!
I pray your Lenten season was a
blessed one, full of conversions both big and small. We are indeed called to
conversions not just during the Lenten season but throughout the year. And with
that said if we allow Jesus to make small changes within our hearts each day
than we are on the right path. We just need to have an open and docile heart and
Jesus will do the rest. With Jesus’s merciful love and his forgiveness, we can
be made new again.
Now with the Easter season upon us
we now must respond to the love which we have received. I often tell the poor
here that Jesus was not kept on the cross by the three nails piercing his
hands and feet but rather it was his love for us that kept him on the cross.
With this in mind, we must respond, we must become his hands and feet here on
earth, we must imitate his love, generosity and immense mercifulness to all those
who cross our paths.
Though many approach the Easter season
as if there is nothing more Christians need to do because Jesus paid the debt
on the cross in full for us, believing there is nothing more required of us. Or
even worse many people take on the approach or belief that that somehow Jesus
owes us something or that we have a right to what he has to offer without
paying a price for what we want! However,
this is so contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church and the examples we
find in the lives of the Saints. They understood just as in the secular world,
that in the world of the divine “You get nothing, for nothing”, that there is a
“cost of loving God”. Just like a true friendship or true love between
spouses there is a demanding price one must pay, and this is no different when
speaking of our relationship with Jesus.
More so, “God loves us so much that
He expects us to love Him in return. And the price of being loved by the almighty
is high, as also is the price of growing in His love. The more precious
the commodity the higher the price, the most precious possession in the world
is the love of God. You don’t get this, I don’t say for nothing or cheaply;
you pay, and you pay dearly”. So, the question remains what is the cost of
Loving God? What is the recompense for His prior goodness to us and as the
wages so to speak? Father John Hardon S.J. wrote that God expects just two
things from us. The first is the willingness to give up whatever pleasant
things He may want us to surrender. The second is the willingness to take
whatever painful things He may want to send to us!” In other words, this Easter season we should focused
on what the price is to love God! We should focus our attention and studies to
the importance of what it means to pick up our own cross, and to embrace not
only what it means to suffer, but the JOY of suffering, of redemptive suffering,
in other words we should focus on the Cost of Loving God!
Saint Ignatius wrote “If God
gives you an abundant harvest of trials, it is a sign of the great holiness to
which He desires you to attain. Do you want to become a great saint? Ask God to
send you many sufferings… All pleasures of the world are nothing compared
with the sweetness found in the gall and vinegar offered to Jesus Christ- that is,
hard and painful things endured for Jesus Christ and with Jesus Christ.”
With that said we should reflect on Pope
John Paul II’s words in where he wrote that “suffering" seems to be
particularly essential to the nature of man… Suffering seems to belong to man's
transcendence: it is one of those points in which man is in a certain sense
"destined" to go beyond himself, and he is called to this in a
mysterious way.”
In conclusion we should reflect on
the words spoken from St. Philip Neri as he has been credited with saying that “The
cross is a gift God gives to his friends.”
My friends in Christ, may we except
the mission at hand to pick up our crosses, our sufferings, and hardships with Joy!
May we recognize that because God loved us first there is a great response required
on our behalf and to embrace the great cost of loving God! Between the
sacrifices and the cross we must pay, lies the whole price of DIVINE LOVE!
Though I am writing this letter to
you I feel that it is also a lesson I need to remind myself of. My heart and soul
have been reflecting a lot on my sufferings lately, on the loneliness of the mission
field, and the hardships of life in foreign missions in general. And now with the
Easter season upon us, I was eager to find myself in a new season, perhaps with
less suffering. And yet here on the first Monday of the Easter season, it is as
if I am still in the season of many trials and suffering, feeling almost guilty
for feeling this way as many are in a season of rejoicing, I remain close to our
Lord and know that he loves me dearly and through the gift of the crosses that I bear I am not alone in my sufferings as he
draws near me every day and night helping me bare their weight. I desire to
hold fast, to remain in his word and to make a plea asking for even more suffering!
Please pray for Gabriel and I and please
be confident that we are praying for each one of you by name.
Below, I have attached pictures from the
mission field, from the different Lenten activities that we celebrated with our
community here. I pray that you will enjoy
them.
Gabriel and I thank each one of you
for your love and support! The mission here would not exist without you!
After the Celebration of the word and distribution of Holy Communion everyone in our community participated in the washing of the feet!
Quotes used are taken from the following sources:
John A. Hardon S.J., Joy in Suffering, (Inter Mirifica, 25 January 2014)
Pope John Paul II. Apostolic Letter Salvifici Doloris (11 February 1984).
