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The essence of faith is trusting that God knows our needs better than we do and trusting that our prayers will be answered in ways we cannot anticipate. God sometimes sends us challenges to prepare us to cope with greater difficulties ahead.  When we are faced with adversity, instead of asking God “why me” or “how could you let this happen to me,” we should try to trust that a greater good or hidden purpose will emerge as God’s most recent gift to us.

Thursday in the First Week of Lent

St. Patrick’s Day

Esther C:12, 14-16, 23-25

Psalm 138:1-2ab, 2cde-3, 7c-8

M atthew 7:7-12  "Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. (8) For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. (9) Or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? (10) Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? (11) If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (12) So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.

Meditation by Eileen Wirth (Creighton University, Jesuit)

“If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him.” (Matthew).

As a kid growing up in a large farm family, it never occurred to me to ask my parents for expensive gifts. Santa had a budget, soda was a birthday treat, eating out a special occasion and chores a given. That’s just the way it was. Little did I know then that my mother, especially, was daily giving all of us gifts far more valuable than anything under the Christmas tree.

Every evening after supper (not dinner, this was a farm) we assembled around the kitchen table with our homework, Mother presiding. She was a one-woman tutoring force, ensuring that all of us completed our assignments. We took the arrangement for granted even when we weren’t especially grateful for some of her “gifts” like demanding that we struggle with algebra and physics problems until we solved them. Not being of the math and science persuasion, I would have given up after a futile try or two. Although I never got good at either field, I learned a LOT about persistence – the kind of “good gift” that Matthew refers to in today’s gospel.

Jesus knew that wise parents do not always give their children what they seek any more than God does when we run through our daily lists of requests. I think the essence of faith is trusting that God knows our needs better than we do and trusting that our prayers may be answered in ways we cannot anticipate. Often we will see God’s wisdom only in retrospect just as I now see Mother’s wisdom in insisting completing difficult assignments. 

I wonder if God sometimes sends us challenges to prepare us to cope with greater difficulties ahead.  In hindsight, we may even see that our greatest difficulties led to far greater good or happiness than we could ever have imagined. The bottom line: when we are faced with adversity, instead of asking God “why me” or “how could you let this happen to me,” we should try to trust that a greater good or hidden purpose will emerge as God’s most recent gift to us.

St. Patrick’s Day

S aint Patrick's Day (Irish: Lá Fhéile Pádraig) is a religious holiday celebrated internationally on 17 March. It is named after Saint Patrick (c. AD 387–461), the most commonly recognised of the patron saints of Ireland. It originated as a Roman Catholic holiday but is now observed by Protestant churches also. It became an official feast day in the early 17th century. Over time, Saint Patrick's Day has gradually become more of a secular celebration of Irish culture.

Saint Patrick's Day is a public holiday in the Republic of Ireland,[1] Northern Ireland, [2] Newfoundland and Labrador and in Montserrat. It is also widely celebrated by the Irish Diaspora, especially in places such as Great Britain, Canada, the United States, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and Montserrat, among others. (Data from Wikipedia.)

The Life of St. Patrick (Also Taken from Wikipedia)

L ittle is known of Patrick's early life, though it is known that he was born in Roman Britain in the 4th century, into a wealthy Romano-British family. His father and grandfather were deacons in the Church.

At the age of sixteen, he was kidnapped by Irish raiders and taken captive to Ireland as a slave.[3] It is believed he was held somewhere on the west coast of Ireland, possibly Mayo, but the exact location is unknown. According to his Confession, he was told by God in a dream to flee from captivity to the coast, where he would board a ship and return to Britain. Upon returning, he quickly joined the Church in Auxerre in Gaul and studied to be a priest. [citation needed]

In 432, he again said that he was called back to Ireland, though as a bishop, to Christianise the Irish from their native polytheism. Irish folklore tells that one of his teaching methods included using the shamrock to explain the Christian doctrine of the Trinity to the Irish people. After nearly thirty years of evangelism, he died on 17 March 461, and according to tradition, was buried at Downpatrick. Although there were other more successful missions to Ireland from Rome, Patrick endured as the principal champion of Irish Christianity and is held in esteem in the Irish Church. # # #

GOD BLESS US ALL!

O Theos Na Mas Evlogisi!
PRAY as if everything depended on HIM. ACT as if everything depended on YOU. – Bobot Apit

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