PERFECT TIME

It is in the dark hours of our life that we encounter so much fear, anxiety and confusion. When we are experiencing these things it is best to just stay calm and know that we can count on God. Let us not lose hope nor be discouraged whenever we go through a time like this. We can always hold on to God's words in the scriptures as in today's 1st reading which instructs us what to do. Amen. Hallelujah!

Isaiah 26:7-9, 12, 16-19

...My soul yearns for you in the night, yes, my spirit within me keeps vigil for you; when your judgment dawns upon the earth, the world’s inhabitants learn justice. 12 O LORD, you mete out peace to us, for it is you who have accomplished all we have done...

Let us keep our hope and faith in the Lord who never turns His back on those who continue and persevere in their prayers and pleas to God. God knows the perfect time for everything. It is not a matter of delaying and withholding His blessings but rather a matter of perfect timing. Amen. Hallelujah!

Psalm 102:13-14ab, 15, 16-18, 19-21

R: The Lord will not abandon his people.

...for it is time to pity her...when he has regarded the prayer of the destitute, and not despised their prayer.

By this time we may have experienced and witnessed a lot in life already to know that today's gospel is the best thing we ought to do. No one in this world can get away from problems and sorrow in life. Life here on earth is as imperfect as it is. We can not expect to live a life of perfect peace and happiness here on earth but we can surely make the best out of what we've got right here and now if we are to follow these words below in the gospel. There is really nowhere and no one else to go to but the Lord. We should have realized this by now if we have learned our lessons well. In times past when we have forgotten to surrender to God and depended more on our strength, skill and intelligence, we have seen the difference and the worst in the outcome of our actions. In whatever we do, for as long as we are not violating God's commands we must not forget to lift up everything to God in prayer and He will clearly show us the way. Why, because God said, come to me who you labor and heavily burdened… Our Lord looked at the people around fighting heavy battle, losing, carrying great burden and running out of strength. Sometimes life gets us down and causes us a tiredness of body and weariness of soul that no amount of sleep can rectify. On such occasions we hear Him say “Come to me let me help you carry your burden. Of course the problem with us is that we’re carrying burdens that we were never intended to carry. The burdens and the problems belong to Him. He is in charge of the world, not us. We can not solve problems on our own. We must realize that He alone can solve problems we could never solve. When Moses met God in the burning bush, Moses asked God “What is your name and whom shall I say sent me?” He said My name is “I am” not I was nor I will be but I am. God lives in the eternal now where it is neither past nor future. If we are going to realize that at this very moment God sees us not only at this lovely day He created but He sees us already dead, buried, judged and safely home with Him forever for the ecstasy that He has planned for us. He sees now as we are worrying and fretting about a future that may never come. Moses told the Lord, who am I to go to pharaoh. But God was with Moses as He is with us. He said I shall be with you and He was with Moses, as He is with us, too. In the Angelus we say behold the handmaid of the Lord… These are the words of our Lady which she said and meant. Though, she has no idea what the Lord has in store for her, she allowed God to do what He has in store for her. Can we also say the same and mean it? God has a plan for us and that plan is filled with love. The Lord said I am meek and humble of heart. He has no ego problems like we have. We must realize that the most difficult problem is preoccupation with self. When we go into a room and try to impress everybody we come out and think how we fair in ourselves. We just have to let go. He wants us to work with Him in helping other human beings. The yoke is the 2 metal piece ring that links 2 animals.  It’s what happens to us when we give our help to the Lord, not what happens to whom we have helped. If we are blinded with selfishness we fail to accept the plan God has for us. Our desire to thank God is our gift and adds nothing to His greatness. Did we ever stop to think that the only thing that our Lord asks of us is humility. Learn of me for I am meek and humble of heart and you will find rest for your soul. But we listen so easily to the father of lies. We imagine to find what we pray in flattery, in the applause of the crowd and in riches. But what is humility? What is this vague, ethereal, intangible, supernatural virtue? It is simply the truth. The truth shall set us free.  And the truth about us is that apart from God we are nothing. We have nothing, we can do nothing. We have a body but we can not control it. We do not know when it will die. We have a mind but the bursting of a tiny blood vessel will make us imbeciles forever. We have a heart that can love but at times we have no control over it. It is hard, cold and unresponsive to the needs of others. But there is a positive side about this which is beautifully described by Father Faber, in Frederick William the English poet who became a Catholic after Cardinal Newman. He said, “There are some thoughts which however old they are, are always new. Either because they are so broad that they are never thoroughly learned or because they are so intensely practical that their interest is always absorbing. And such thoughts are for the most part very common thoughts. They require no peculiar keenness of vision for no one can fail to perceive them. They are like the huge mountains visible to everybody on the plain below. Now among such thoughts we may reckon that thought which every child would know that God loves each one of us with a special love. This is one of the most common thoughts in our religion and yet when we come to look steadily at it we find it very hard to believe. God does look at us in the mass and the multitude as though we stand single and alone before His judgment seat one day but before the eye of His boundless love. This is our faith.  This is the faith in which we must live and die. St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Philippians that this mind be in us which was in Christ Jesus who although he is God emptied Himself taking the form of a servant (Philippians 2,6-11). Christ divested Himself of His dazzling beauty and glory and he was lost in the crowd and he was thought to be Mary’s boy and Joseph’s son. We are asked to empty ourselves of all that is false of all that is ignoble , all that is unreal so that we may become filled with Christ. Because nature abhors a vacuum and so does grace. We must be filled with something. Tragically we are filled with all kinds of desire, we want to be applauded, be promoted, we want to be consulted and we want to be loved. We want to be preferred to others. Look at all the fears that fill us that stifle us and paralyze us. We are afraid of sickness, growing old and of death. We are afraid of the thought of what comes after death. Don’t we remember Shakespeare, “To sleep for a chance to dream, what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil must give us pause to that undiscovered land from whose no traveler returned. John the Baptist gave us our ideal, I must decrease and He must increase (John 3:30). All the foolishness, unreality intolerance, the selfishness and all the sin that is in us must decrease so that we must fill the vacuum with our Lord who wants to share our life. He wants to be part of the trivia that make up the waking hours. Whatever happens to us happens to Him and He wants us to let Him share because only then will we find the rest that we pray. A long time ago St. Francis cried out loud, “He comes to His own today and receives Him not.” And so we live lives that are restless, confused, frustrated and unfulfilled because we do not share our lonely life with Him. So the prayer we learn as children that is said all over the world among Christians should be our prayer now, Oh Jesus meek and humble of heart make our hearts like unto Thine. Amen. Hallelujah!

Matthew 11:28-30

28 Jesus said: “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your selves. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”