Gladness To Balance Your Misfortune

When will our misery end? Will we ever see the good things of the Lord in the Land of the Living? Will we be faced with misery until we die?

Will “a man of constant sorrow” see the goodness of the Lord in his life?

If the good news doesn’t seen so good, why should anyone follow the gospel.

Why martyrs? Is it just the hope of coming soon into a better life? Why go through the torture in the here and now?

Yes, of course the martyrs had that hope of entering into eternal bliss, but there is something more. Something about possessing Jesus here and now that makes us never want to give that up.

Even now, right now, we belong to Him and He belongs to us and that is the union that matters most to our very existence.

written by Laura Weston, widow of Deacon Michael

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You know, one thing about out Holy Catholic Church, it really does a whole lot to encourage us. Last Sunday we had "don't want money...", we have "blessed is the man who perseveres in temptation...", "do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul...", "those who sow in tears shall reap rejoicing". Jesus talks about how you have to give up everything for Him.

And that how you're going to be persecuted, you're going to be subject to temptation, you're going to get old, you're gonna hurt, you're gonna die, you're gonna suffer.

Sometimes you go, "God, if I believe, set it up so I have have an ice cream cone every day. I will take care of all that other stuff.

We don't go out and advertising like Joel Olsteen: "Believe in Jesus and you will be wealthy. If you're not wealthy, it means you're not doing it right." "Believe in Jesus and when you're ninety-three years old you're gonna look like you're twenty-one. You're going to have a five handicap. You're going to swim and dive all the years of your life."

Why can't God just do that? I'm a follower of Christ. God says, "That's good. Okay, let me give you the menu. You get one from column one, two from column two and three from column three. Choose what you want. You can have those and then everything else we'll worry about as they come along. You're still gonna suffer, but you're gonna have really good stuff."

That's not what God does. In fact, He takes it to such an extreme that He takes His only begotten Son and says, "Son..." ":Yeah Dad, I know what you're thinking. You want Me to go down there." "Yup." "Thy will be done.... is there something more that I should know about this?" "Yup. You're going to be human.” “Really? I'm going to itch when mosquitos bite Me? When I stub my toe, it's going to hurt?" "Yup, and you're gonna die." "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's back up a little bit. I'm gonna die?" "Yes."

"And nobody's gonna like you. And your followers are going to be persecuted. And, you know those things that we were talking about... where you get to choose from column one, two and three of what you want? I've decided I'm not going to do that. They're just going to live their lives and suffer."

"And I'm supposed to get followers that way? I can't tell them that they're going to get the best of food?" "Nope. They're going to live their lives."

"Well why in the world would anybody follow Me? Why would someone become a martyr? It hurts. When you're having your head chopped off, I'm sure it hurts a little bit, but the anticipation would just be horrible! Why would people like Sixtus and his companions, his deacon die? Why would Lawrence do what he does? Why would our martyrs do that? Why would people in the... look at this! God, you mean that there are going to be people who get up at 6:30 in the morning and go to a communion service?" "Um hum."

“Why? Why would we do this?”

Paul says that he preaches Christ, and Christ crucified. That the Son of God, wholly human, wholly divine died for us. He was crucified and He rose again. He has taken all of these things of our normal life, you know, my back hurts; I've got a headache; I'm tired; there was a good TV show on. He takes all of those things bundled up and He makes them good.

Mayve doesn't need ice cream every day. It would be nice, but what she needs is Christ crucified. Why would people die for Christ? Why would they become martyrs? Why would we live the way we live if it were not for Christ crucified?

This transformation of the world that occurs with Jesus being the Son of God and the Son of Mary, and dying on the cross for our sins, and His resurrection, and bringing to us the ability to spend all eternity with Him in Heaven, transforms everything. Absolutely everything is transformed. What is mundane, what is painful, what is undesirable, temptation, killing, sowing in tears, however you want to describe it, all of the sudden, not all of the sudden, though Our Lord Jesus Christ, was transformed. It is totally and completely transformed. It has meaning. And more than that, it has given us the ability to take those very things that the world, the ordinary world, would look upon as being horrible things: poverty, suffering, disease, death, whatever you want to list on it... it takes the things that the rest of the world says, "Oh they are so horrible, we need to be avoiding them, we don't want to do them, we do anything to get it away from us"... and makes them a positive; makes them part of our salvation history, the salvation history that each and every one of us experiences through Our Lord Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. A salvation history which we pray will result in our spending all eternity with God in Heaven.

And it is this transformation of the world that gives somebody like Sixtus and his companions the ability to say, "I am a follower of Jesus Christ and if you are going to kill me for being a follower of Christ, do so. Because I will not give him up.”

And so when we look at our lives and we ask the question, and I think it is an important question to ask, "Do we have it within us to be a martyr?"

And the way to look at it is to look a the gift that Jesus Christ has given us. The gift of His Body and Blood. The gift of eternal life. The gift of His Holy Catholic Church.

And when we come to understand the gift, the answer will be the same answer that Sixtus gave, "Yes, I believe. I'm not going to give up my belief. I am what God wants me to be. And if it requires you to kill me, so be it."

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