Peace be with you!
Luke 24:35-48
I would describe myself, especially in my early years, as an “anxious” person. To
be “anxious” is to be “uneasy and apprehensive about something uncertain” or to
be “worried.” It’s all about that awful
thing might happen next.
Living in anxiety is a lot like living with a ticking time-bomb strapped
to your leg – only all day, everyday. It is living in dread, living on “pins
and needles,” “waiting for the other shoe to drop,” waiting to “hit bottom”
after falling. It is no way to live and only those who have been there
understand.
As a small child, anxiety was a simple, passing experience – the terror
of hiding under covers, wide-awake, after your older sister had told convincing
ghost stories or during the height of a crashing, booming rainstorm.
As an older child, our home was an emotional mind field,
loaded with unseen triggers everywhere. You never knew if your next step would
set off an explosion of curse-filled name-calling – and worst of all, knowing
that there was absolutely nothing you could do about it. There was nowhere to
run and nowhere to hide from it. You had to stand and take it until the storm
passed, only to have it return again without notice.
As a young man still in school, it was about the fear of failure, fear
of not being good enough, fear of rejection, fear of being laughed at and
bullied, fear of not having enough to live on and the fear of going nowhere
from where you were, the fear that “this” was going to be “as good as it gets.”
As a young priest, it was about being threatened by the Klan, being
scorned in public for being a Catholic by some Protestant ministers on the radio and for being a liberal
Catholic by fundamentalist Catholics, being stalked by a knife wielding
schizophrenic, watching years of work and dreams crack and almost fall to the
ground in front of me, sleeping with one eye open for years after having your
home burglarized three times, being ashamed of being a priest and maybe of being
falsely accused during wave after wave of bad news about the sexual abuse
scandal or waiting for the results of a biopsy that might have been cancer.
“Peace
be with you!”
At 74, this may be the most anxiety free time of my life. Today, I know
“peace,” the opposite of “anxiety.” I
have a safe place to live. I have enough to live comfortably and a little saved
for the future. I have a few successes behind me and I have a variety of
wonderful jobs to wake up for every day. I feel loved and accepted by myself
and by most of those who know me.
But most of all, I am more at peace now than I have ever been because I
have discovered the “good news” that Jesus came to bring. I know that I am
loved by God, without condition, and in the end that everything is going to
turn out OK, even if I may still have to face the challenges of old age, bad
health and, God forbid, a painful death.
Because of the peace that God gives those who believe in his “good
news,” I am confident that he will help me handle whatever comes my way, the
rest of the way.
“Peace be with you!”
As many of you know, I officially
“retired” June 30th 2015. Before I retired, I worked for several
years on a project that would help me and other retired priests across the
country do exciting and interesting things we had always wanted to do, but
never got a chance to do – things that would help the church and keep us
engaged for several more years. I managed to get it funded, I was going to run
it in my own retirement, it was all set to be launched when it blew up on the
launching pad. Because the plans for my own retirement, as well as many others
who were looking forward to this new program, were in ashes due to a couple of
dysfunctional people, I was left angry and hurt and confused. My peaceful center was shaken to the core. At my lowest point, I wrote in my journal that I wanted to
believe that when plan A falls apart, it just means that God has a plan B that
he is about to reveal that could be even better. It has been that way through most of my life. Well, God’s plan B for me was revealed to me over the Easter holidays three years ago! Indeed, we should be careful what we pray
for because God is certainly capable of delivering some big surprises!
Holy Week, three years ago, I went down to the
Caribbean island countries of Barbados and St. Vincent and the Grenadines to
help Bishop Jason Gordon with a prayer day for his priests preceding the annual
Chrism Mass at the Cathedral of the Assumption in Kingstown on St. Vincent.
That was followed by leading services on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy
Saturday and Easter Sunday at two parishes in the center of the island for a priest who had come down sick.
Before you think white sandy beaches
and beautiful hotels, think poverty, heat, pot holes and challenging foreign mission work!
I came home reeling from one of the most challenging Holy Weeks I have ever been
through. The people were poor, the water risky, the roads a mess and the
whole island was lacking in beaches and gorgeous hotels compared to typical Caribbean travel brochures. However, the people were very friendly and appreciative, they
welcomed me with open arms and they can put Catholics in this country to shame
when it comes to singing in church!
I have been going back. Bishop Gordon (now Archbishop Gordon of Trinidad), himself
a native of the island country of Trinidad, wanted me to come back two or three
times a year mainly to do some ongoing formation for his handful of priests and
deacons, as well as help in parishes whenever possible. He wanted me to do some
of these thing in both of his dioceses - Bridgetown (Barbados) and Kingstown
(St. Vincent and the Grenadines). It’s tough, uncomfortable and
demanding work. One has to have the heart of a missionary and a huge amount of
God’s grace for a spoiled American like me to serve down there! I am truly amazed at how much we have accomplished in the last three years, especially in Saint Vincent.
I had no idea this opportunity would
present itself the way it has. I didn’t know how fast I could get involved, but I was certainly
willing to explore these possibilities. I started out in the home missions of
our diocese, now it looks like I could end up, part of the year at least,
working in the foreign missions. My tenth trip is coming up in June. One toe at a time, I am willing to take the
plunge. I have been amazed at how much has happened already. I am hooked. My peace and excitement for ministry has been
restored. I feel I am in the right place!
“Peace be with you!”
These words
of Jesus were not only addressed to the terrified disciples, huddled together
and cringing in fear, in that upper room after his crucifixion, these words are
addressed to all of us today; whether you are a student worried about grades,
finances or the fall-out of a bad choice made in the heat of passion; whether
you are living in abusive relationship or an unsafe environment or with
constant discrimination of being different; whether you are unemployed, in
debt up to your ears or barely handling a chronic health problem; whether you
are a single parent trying to make it on your own; whether you are religiously
scrupulous and live in constant fear of a punishing God and can’t let go of it.
Jesus addresses his words to you today. Peace be with you! Calm down! It’s
going to be OK! When all is said and done, things are going to turn out just
fine. I am with you! Trust me!
Anxiety
is worry about what might happen. Peace is the awareness that everything will be OK no matter what happens. Trust in God
is the only way to peace. Peace is God’s gift to us and it is based on the
“good news” that we are loved and that great things await us – because God said
so!
Let me end with one of my favorite prayers by Saint Francis de Sales.
Do not look forward in fear to the changes in life;
rather, look to them with full hope that as they arise,
God, whose very own you are,
will lead you safely through all things;
and when you cannot stand it,
God will carry you in His arms.
Do not fear what may happen tomorrow;
the same understanding Father who cares for
you today will take care of you then and every day.
He will either shield you from suffering
or will give you unfailing strength to bear it.
Be at peace,
and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations.
“Peace be with you!”
