All the Scriptures we heard are very inviting:
Come and rest; come and eat and drink.
It’s all very inviting, isn’t it?
In the second reading,
St. Paul gives us every reason not to worry.
And yet, we worry all the same, don’t we?
Isaiah asks, “Why spend your money for what is not bread,
your wages for what does not satisfy?”
We still do that, don’t we?
All this raises the question:
How do you and I learn to have that calm, that peace,
No matter what our circumstances may be?
Yes, that truly is possible: in any circumstance!
Many of our parishioners were just in Mexico on pilgrimage.
They visited the tomb of one of the many martyrs from a century ago,
when Catholics in Mexico faced terrible trials.
They were hunted, arrested and killed by the thousands.
Led before firing squads,
Do you know what the Mexican Catholics said as they died?
Viva Christo Rey! “Christ the King LIVES!”
Did those martyrs lose everything? Or did they gain everything?
The amazing story of Francis Xavier Nguyễn Văn Thuận,
who was Archbishop of Saigon, comes to mind.
When the communists conquered South Vietnam in 1975,
he was imprisoned for 13 years.
Archbishop Van Thuan managed to hide away, in his cell,
a stash of wine and altar bread.
He offered Mass from memory – he had no Missal.
The archbishop would use just a few crumbs of bread,
Three drops of wine, one drop of water.
He used his hand as the paten and chalice!
After he was liberated, he called those
the most beautiful Masses he ever offered.
That gulag was close to hell on earth.
Archbishop Van Thuan found heaven there, in the Eucharist.
Now, one more story, and I invite you to put yourself in it.
This comes from Father Randall Roberts,
Who was a United States Air Force chaplain in Saudi Arabia.
He was serving American soldiers stationed there.
Because any public Christian activity is illegal in Saudi Arabia,
when he was going to offer Mass for American soldiers
who were stationed in Saudi, that had to be low-key, out of sight,
and he relied on soldiers to spread the word.
So, one day he was offering Mass in an abandoned recreation shack
surrounded by a chain-link fence.
Now, it also happens there are many millions of foreign workers
in Saudi Arabia, including very many Christians.
One of these foreign workers walked by;
He looked, and when he realized Mass was underway,
Here’s that man’s reaction, as Father Roberts witnessed:
The man “pressed himself against the other side of the fence.”
He appeared to be straining his whole body – or at least his heart –
through the chain-link fence, like water through a filter…
The sheer ecstasy in his face from being present
at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass – though not able to move closer –
is an image that will be indelibly etched in my heart until I die.
Many of us face the agony of uneven finances,
family distress, and uncertain health situations.
Some may be unsure where their home will be next month.
But notice: no fences, no threatening armies blocked us
from meeting Jesus in the Holy Mass today!
Even with the cross each of us carries,
you and I yet have an embarrassment of riches,
both material and spiritual.
We are like the apostles who only saw scarcity and crisis;
They couldn’t yet anticipate the abundance Jesus would provide.
One hallmark of martyrs is that, when they seemingly lost everything,
they still held the true treasure they could never lose.
This is how we can know the peace they gained.
Choosing to live each day as if we possess nothing but Jesus.
Anchoring all our hope, not in our stuff, our plans and assumptions,
but only in him.
Beg the Holy Spirit to give us this gift!
