THE MESSAGE, NOT THE MESSENGER

“We thank God constantly that in receiving His message from us you took it, not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the word of God.” —1 Thessalonians 2:13

As a teenager, I attended daily Masses said by Father O’Hare (not his real name). His style rubbed me the wrong way; it was hard for me to concentrate on his homilies. God used him to teach me to concentrate on the message, not the messenger (1 Thes 2:13). Here are some words of God from various “disturbing” messengers over the years that have stayed with me:

Sin is serious. Repent immediately.
We Catholics have the greatest news ever. We need to share this news with everyone.
“He Who has begun the good work in you will carry it through to completion” (Phil 1:6).
You have to work for justice if you call yourself Christian.
Jesus loves you passionately. Why can’t you love Him?
Here is how you wait on the Lord: “you just wait.”
The infant Jesus lies in a manger, a feeding trough. By this God shows us that Jesus is Food for us (Jn 6:55).
Teach the truth.
God uses all kinds of messengers to speak His words to us. He may speak His most profound messages through the messenger we least want to hear. How about you? What words of God can you list from messengers whose style you didn’t care for? What messages of God are you missing?

Prayer: Father, use anyone You want to teach me anything You want. Open my ears that I may hear You at all times.
Promise: “The greatest among you will be the one who serves the rest.” —Mt 23:11
Praise: Praise Jesus, the Lamb of God Who brought us out of darkness into His glorious light! Because He rose, we “hope in the Lord, both now and forever” (Ps 131:3).

Feast of the Day

October 30
St. Alphonsus Rodriguez
(c. 1533-1617)

 

Tragedy and challenge beset today’s saint early in life, but Alphonsus Rodriguez found happiness and contentment through simple service and prayer.
Born in Spain in 1533, Alphonsus inherited the family textile business at 23. Within the space of three years, his wife, daughter and mother died; meanwhile, business was poor. Alphonsus stepped back and reassessed his life. He sold the business and, with his young son, moved into his sisters’ home. There he learned the discipline of prayer and meditation.

Years later, at the death of his son, Alphonsus, almost 40 by then, sought to join the Jesuits. He was not helped by his poor education. He applied twice before being admitted. For 45 years he served as doorkeeper at the Jesuits’ college in Majorca. When not at his post, he was almost always at prayer, though he often encountered difficulties and temptations.

His holiness and prayerfulness attracted many to him, including St. Peter Claver, then a Jesuit seminarian. Alphonsus’s life as doorkeeper may have been humdrum, but he caught the attention of poet and fellow-Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins, who made him the subject of one of his poems.

Alphonsus died in 1617. He is the patron saint of Majorca.

Comment:

We like to think that God rewards the good even in this life. But Alphonsus knew business losses, painful bereavement and periods when God seemed very distant. None of his suffering made him withdraw into a shell of self-pity or bitterness. Rather, he reached out to others who lived with pain, including enslaved blacks. Among the many notables at his funeral were the sick and poor people whose lives he had touched. May they find such a friend in us!