"The thought of my homeless poverty is wormwood and gall; Remembering it over and over leaves my soul downcast within me."---Lamentations 3
This verse is followed by one of the most quoted verses in scripture, "But I will call this to mind. as my reason to have hope: The favors of the Lord are not exhausted, His mercies are not spent; They are renewed each morning, so great is His faithfulness." Without the agony of the 20 verses before he remembers his hope, the hope has no depth or meaning. We are all in and out of these agonies and dark nights from time to time. At least I know that I am. I find myself more than often crying out like this lamentor when "my soul is deprived of peace." Jesus said that if we follow Him we will have trouble in this life. Paul writes about that trouble in Romans 7 when he says things like, "wretched man that I am, who will free me from this body of sin and death?!" And sometimes our trouble comes from out of the blue and we feel as if God has abandoned us. Well, according to the fellow in Lamentations, that is when we need to remember. And isn't that what we do at Mass everyday? We obey Jesus' command to "do this in remembrance of Me." No matter what we are going through, He never stops giving Himself to us in the Blessed Sacrament. He knew what we go through in our struggle to follow Him.
Lord, help us remember!
wkm
1 comment:
You say in your blog:-
Jesus said that if we follow Him we will have trouble in this life.
This is very true, because to be his follower, you need to obey all of his commands, because that is what he said.
This includes Luke 12:33, "Sell what you have and give to those in need".
What he meant was:-
His disciples/followers should not have more than the poorest (where they live) are able to have.
You cannot follow Jesus without doing this.
I have a website at: http://www.veergild.com if you are interested.
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