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He Gave His Only Son

"Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed."

John 21:29

• There should be less talk. A preaching point is not a meeting point.


• The dying, the cripple, the mental, the unwanted, the unloved-- they are Jesus in disguise.


• In the West there is loneliness, which I call the leprosy of the West. In many ways it is worse than our poor in Calcutta. (Commonweal, Dec 19, 1997)


• It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving.


• The poor give us much more than we give them. They're such strong people, living day to day with no food. and they never curse, never complain. We don't have to give them pity or sympathy. We have so much to learn from them.


• I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper's wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?


• I do not pray for success. I ask for faithfulness.


• Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go.


• If you judge people, you have no time to love them.

~Mother Teresa~

My daughter posed an interesting observation about her qualities as a young student one day that I thought would also apply very well to us as Christian learners under God's unimaginably patient tutoring. My daughter wondered why she seemed to be a fast learner but seemed to forget easily what she had learned in the first place. I teased her by saying that maybe that was the reason why we all needed twelve or so years of school we just simply need to learn over and over the important things and then learn how to keep them up in our heads and hearts until we can apply them productively in our lives. Looking back on my own journey and ongoing education in Living Faith designed exclusively for me by our Heavenly Father, I can't help but say that I am very much like my daughter fast learner yes, but deep and consistent recall of what I have learned, certainly a no! I would learn and then promise never to forget, only to forget and then have to start all over again learning when a new "lesson" comes. With our Heavenly Father's infinite wisdom and patience, He continues to teach and has not given up hoping that I will eventually learn completely the fine attributes necessary for a joyful eternal life with Him.

Looking back on my own fifty years, it has been a long journey of learning how to trust and believe God's plan of action for my salvation. From one trial to another Our Father has never failed to demonstrate His wisdom: showing me eventually that my choice wasn't always the best; showing me eventually that what I considered failure was actually a springboard for something better or, in many cases, what I considered a good thing was actually not so. One would think that after all that consistent demonstration of His wisdom, mercy and power above all circumstances that I would have learned how to be consistent in having a deep and abiding sense of trusting in His plan for me, no matter if I could not make sense of it at first, or no matter if things do not go my way at all. A saint once said that faith is the ability to see and understand what others cannot, and the ability to continue trusting God even when it is truly hard to do. At this I just have to thank our Heavenly Father for His generosity in giving me opportunities to deepen my faith and desire to know and love Him. It is true that most of them were painful learning opportunities, but I have learned that if I try to "see" things His way, it is indeed possible to make a bitter cup taste sweet.

St. Paul says, ". . . . and not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulations produces perseverance, and perseverance, character; and character, hope." (Romans 5:3-4)

Hindered by our human imperfections and frailty, training our vision to focus on things above and not of things below as St. Paul has said often takes a lifetime of learning, failing but most of all, trying, and trying still. Slow as we are to deeply retain that quiet and unshakeable peace brought about by our trust in our Lord Jesus rather than outside circumstances, we need a million times more to be enrolled in God's School for Eternity 101. And as our Heavenly Father is the Perfect Teacher so full of love and compassion He waits patiently until our hearts and our minds are firmly secure in the knowledge that Our Heavenly Father never, ever fails. "Because His ways are not our ways and are infinitely above our ways," He asks us to learn how to cast out our fear of His unexpected and oftentimes incomprehensible ways. May we let our fear of the unknown and things beyond our control be replaced with the knowledge and conviction that our Heavenly Father has our eternal salvation as His paramount desire.

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