05 April 2008

What a Big Gift to Ask For!

Looking at the collect for Misericordia Domini (Good Shepherd Sunday):

Grant to Your faithful people, rescued from the peril of everlasting death, perpetual gladness and eternal joys.

I think of so many who are sad now, so many who are passing through rough times. I visited this afternoon with a man who was literally crying and frightened. For him and for all who are weeping and anxious, nervous and worried, the Church asks on this coming Sunday for the gift of perpetual gladness and eternal joys - and all because we've been rescued from the danger of everlasting death.

The weeping, the worry, the fretting, they happen when the sorrows of this life are enlarged in our minds and our attention is focused on them. On Good Shepherd Sunday the Church calls us all to focus on something far different: the certainty that eternal death cannot hold us; that in our Lord we have been given a life that is far bigger than any death we will have to face.

It's when we let the joy of this sink in and consume our vision that our problems are put into true perspective, and the weeping is changed into joy!

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