WHAT'S
RIGHT WITH THE CATHOLIC CHURCH #53
Today, at the opening of the new social year, we
speak
about loneliness: that sense of someone, something, missing in our
lives. It is common to all in the human
condition.
But as we get older, it is more accentuated.
For the elderly it can become a real problem:
·
A
death in the family. After
years of marriage, a partner dies – a man finds himself alone at age 66. What can he do?
·
Long-term
travel away from home.
They tell you: you may continue with the firm if you move from
New
London to Michigan. What?
My kids are in high school. My home
is paid for. My wife has a part-time job. He goes, but he feels terribly alone.
·
Illness. A stroke due to high
blood pressure and chain smoking has done you in: can’t drive, can’t
walk well,
can’t speak well. Now what do you do?
·
Failure. You made a terrible
mistake in life. Nobody knows you. The events have taken you away from all. Loss of a job; divorce; shame to live in the
community.
Where
do you turn? Where do you go? You are
truly blessed if you have Faith in Jesus.
1.
Reach
out. Volunteer; feed people; drive for
people;
read for people; shop for someone; write notes for someone; keep the
bankbook
for someone. Make a schedule: every
Monday, at the hospital; every Sunday, open mail at the rectory. REACH OUT.
2.
Keep
a schedule. They taught us in the
seminary: if you want
to kill a man, take away his schedule. “Serva Ordinem et Ordo
Servabit Te”: “Keep
a schedule and it will keep you”. When
the Czar was captured in Russia in 1918, with his wife and his six
children,
they were all facing execution by Lenin.
A letter got through from the Queen of England, writing to the
Czarina
of Russia. She wrote: “Keep a
schedule for the children. It
will keep their minds off the terrible things you are undergoing”. An hour to rise. An
hour to retire. An hour to eat. A schedule of prayer. A
schedule of Sunday worship. A TV schedule. A schedule of exercise. A
schedule for social meetings. See it all
not as robotic, but rather as a
stairway leading us up – a candle lighting the way!
3.
Live
for tomorrow. How many times have I told
you in these 35
years that the love of tomorrow, the anticipation of tomorrow is the
joy of
today? A trip to New York.
Dinner with friends. An up-coming
wedding or baptism. Plan them.
Create them. Live them in
anticipation.
FINALLY,
WALK WITH JESUS.
We
mean walk in Faith, avoiding serious sin, doing good, living in
spiritual
peace. When your delicate conscience is
at peace, then you are walking with The Lord.
Each day is a joyful experience – not a curse.
When we walk with Jesus as I have described,
our hearts may be broken, bleeding, hurting…but we never walk alone
JESUS IS
WITH US.
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