Live For Now

The second day of the Parish Mission at Spirit of Christ Catholic Community was as moving as the first day. What a gift our priest has for speaking and making me feel as if maybe I do have a chance to get to heaven!

The music director sang and played the piano with some of the words being  you remember me and every man would have a friend. It would be nice to know all the words.  Father asked, "What is the world you want to create. What is the world you want for your children and grandchildren?" He mentioned that the world is becoming a difficult place to live in and it is because of the enemies of grace. Our culture is fighting grace. Our humanism is slowly being erased and we are being robbed of our feeling hearts. We get angry and lash out at whatever or whomever is making us angry. We blame others for making us angry and as long as we are angry we will never know grace.

Are we angry because we do not look into our heart to find out why certain things upset us? Something is touched in our heart when we become angry. We need to know why a certain thing is making us angry. Is it something buried in our heart? If we can figure out why we are angry that is when we get grace. There are enemies of grace lurking around when we want to arrive at our destination but we do not enjoy the journey. As an example the priest spoke on Christmas and the whirlwind preparations before the actual celebration; months before. He suggested that it would make more sense to wait until Christmas Eve and children would understand more of what Christmas is all about. How nice it would be to decorate the tree and turn on the lights on the eve of when Christ was born and not the months before where commercialism has taken over Christmas. I kept thinking, what a wonderful idea yet easier said than done!

Maybe because I am now of the Third Generation, as they say in Mexico, I understood what he meant when he said that many of us do not want to get old. But it is going to happen so maybe we should enjoy the journey to old age and not try to fight it. The story of the young boy who wanted to stay young forever and he decided he would run away in search of happiness before he got old. Year after year he walked and walked and at night he would place his shoes outside his tent pointing to where he wanted to go. One night, a prankster turned the shoes so they were pointing back the way he had come. In the morning he put on his shoes and traveled back to where he had begun. He was now older and he appreciated what he had left behind. He realized that everything remained the same but his attitude had changed so he could now accept his life. I expected the priest to end the story with "and he lived happily ever after." The song Forever Young was sung.

Another enemy of grace is the inability to enjoy today by worrying about yesterday or tomorrow. Painful grace is when we let God help. His story of having cancer, having forty stitches down his stomach, his being an atheist for ten minutes, everything tasting like vinegar and the love of his parents as they helped him recuperate made him realize that his suffering was for others to obtain grace. Problems may be given to someone to help those around the person with the problems. "Grace is given to help others." We should live for each other, be a good companion, help each other because we do not need to suffer alone. He saw that in his father who was a Macho type man that never did household chores because he left it up to his wife. Now he has become a caregiver and her sole provider by feeding her, brushing her hair and being there for her.

The ending words were, "suffering is never for us but for someone else, just enjoy the journey, live every moment of everyday and grow old with grace." The beautiful words of I Believe had some persons in tears. The picture I took of Father appears to have grace glowing on his chest!

"Free yourself of the chains;

live each day,

enjoy each day,

we don't know

if there is a tomorrow."

Fr. Greg Ames