Did Christ Go About His Mission In the Right Way?
ON NOT BEING OVERPOWERED
Wisdom can come to a person even while trudging along the road and not particularly looking for it — and it can come from the most unlikely sources.
About 18 years ago I found myself teaching a sophomore religion class in a Catholic high school. I was really an English teacher. But there was a slot to be filled in the schedule — and there I was filling it.
I was given the freedom to make my own syllabus. Not sure of what to teach, and not feeling particularly motivated, I elected to teach the Gospels, certainly an important part of the Big Book. Here I was falling back on my experience as an English teacher (I had taught “Big Books” like the Iliad, Moby Dick, and Hamlet).
Knowing high school sophomores, I started with St. Mark’s Gospel: It was the shortest of them all. Even if neither the students nor I would be inspired, I figured that the stories might do us some good. That may not sound like St. Paul, but I wasn’t St. Paul — and the sophomores were definitely sophomores.
Early in my preparation for the course I came upon the passage in which Christ, after performing a miracle, immediately warns His audience not to tell anyone about it. The commentary on this passage said something about the “Hidden Way” employed by Jesus. That intrigued me. So I thought about the passage that night and was inspired with a question. My lesson was prepared for the next day.
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In preparation to embrace God’s providence, Fr. Caussade has us renounce our self-love, our will, our efforts, our plans, and our fears, anxieties, and doubts.
God knows me as one to whom He continually gives being, and whom He holds and guides in His loving Providence.
To accept our brokenness is not to resign ourselves to it or succumb to it. Our individual crosses must be carried along the path God has chosen for us, to Heaven.