Acts 9:26-31
Psalm 22
1 John 3:18-24
John 15:1-8
You may recall that I didn’t go
to seminary directly out of high school, but did a couple of years at LSU and
then transferred. I see that time as filled with the handiwork of God in many
ways, one of those being my experience of math courses. When I took the
placement test they said I should be able to start with intro level calculus,
so I signed up for it. My first day in class made it abundantly clear to me
that I was in over my head, so I withdrew and signed up for a lower level
course. The next year I signed up for calculus again, this time a bit more
prepared. Looking back, I believe it rather providential that I took the course
that semester because on the first day of class the teacher announced that we’d
all get bonus points each time the Tigers won a football game – that was the
year we won the national championship. God is good! When it came time for
grades to come out I looked as found that I passed with a D. Barely. It turns
out those bonus points came in quite handy and helped me get exactly the number
of credit hours needed to enter the seminary as a junior instead of a freshman.
Admittedly, I should have studied a lot more and worked a bit harder, but the
bonus points still helped me to get somewhere that I wouldn’t have been without
them.
In the reading we heard from
Acts, we find the story of Saul trying to join up with the newly-formed Church,
but not making much headway. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, though,
considering that not long before he was moving from place to place in search of
Christians in order to kill them and extinguish ‘the Way’ as the Church was
known. It is understandable that the Christian community was reluctant to
welcome him, knowing that his conversion might be a hoax and only a means of
adding more names to his long list of victims. In the midst of this situation
we find the person of Barnabas, who acts as an intermediary to bring Saul into
the community. Saul could certainly have spent a good while trying to prove
himself a Christian and convince the community that his conversion was a
genuine one, but the presence of Barnabas was of great assistance in speeding
the process along. And Saul’s entry brought forth a leader and apostle whose
works are still read and whose evangelical efforts are still bearing fruit.
As we begin this month of May,
the Church has traditionally seen it as a time to honor the Blessed Virgin Mary
and to encourage devotion to her. She does so because sees in the Blessed
Virgin a sure means of growing closer to Jesus Christ with great speed and
ease. This, after all, is the entire purpose of Mary’s life: making Christ
present. When she said yes to the Archangel Gabriel at the Annunciation, it
wasn’t just to the Incarnation of the Son of God in her womb, it was to the
entire plan of God. Bearing the Son first in her womb, she now seeks to bear
Him into our hearts and bring us to Heaven that we might adore Him alongside
her for all eternity. She is constantly at work carrying out the will of God
and pouring His grace upon us, though we may remain unaware. And this I would
like to work on myself: awareness of Mary’s care.
Again, the Church offers this
month as a time to encourage devotion to Mary, so I want to
invite/encourage/challenge you to join me in doing so. Each evening in front of
the Church we will be praying the Rosary. Come join us! If you can’t make it
then, pray it another time in the day – pray it as a family, get a group
together and pray it, pray it on the way to work. You can also do a novena to
Our Lady for some specific intention and see the how powerfully she works. Get
a book and read about her life, about devotion to Mary, about the rosary, about
Marian apparitions over the centuries. And if none of those seem do-able to
you, then at least take a statue of Mary and place it in a prominent place in
your home where you’ll remember daily the spiritual care she is exercising over
you. Think about it – what if you put a statue of Our Lady in your kitchen
sink? You’d certainly notice her a lot more often and would cause you to
reflect that much more on her. Regardless, the key is to grow in devotion to
Mary because as St. Louis de Montfort said, the surest, quickest, and easiest
way to Jesus is through Mary. We can spend many hours working on growth in
virtue, rooting up vice, and practicing Christian charity toward others, but
the simple fact is that what takes us years to accomplish, Mary can bring about
in mere minutes. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to grow close to our
heavenly mother this month because, just like bonus points, she is incredibly
helpful in making things happen that we might never expect otherwise.
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