Memorial of St. Agnes, Virgin & Martyr
My dear encountered couples:
What we often need most is moral support. And if we can’t get it from our family and friends, then where are we going to get it? The same place Jesus got it – from God his Father. His relatives surely didn’t give him much.
In today’s gospel reading they said, “He is out of his mind.” His friends, even the apostles, often seemed baffled by what he said – they just didn’t seem to understand him, and I can picture them standing around with their mouths open. The Jewish authorities were always on his case. To whom else could he go than to his own heavenly Father? Though I suspect he felt support from his mother, the contact with her during those three hard years seems very infrequent.
I believe that the life of Jesus was like it was so that you and I, when we feel alone, don’t think we are the only ones ever to experience such a thing. Jesus was a person so completely in love with others that he would do anything to save anyone from hell, yet feeling alone in the doing of it. We all go through periods of feeling alone, when no one else seems interested in what we are doing, when no gratitude is shown, when no one seems to even care to listen to our ideas. In fact, they might hint, or make it downright obvious, that they think whatever we do is dumb.
I’ll bet presidents, especially the ones who are really concerned about the people and the good of the country, often feel alone. And those who spend their lives for the rights of others, for the basic, human rights of every person, the born and the unborn – I’ll bet those crusaders often feel alone. And they can expect ridicule from somewhere or other. What are we to do?
Like Jesus, we are to go to God our Father, and from him receive what we need. I know you’d like to see and feel the person who’s giving you the support you need, but that just isn’t always possible. Life isn’t like that. We must be firmly rooted in God if we really want the courage and perseverance to accomplish anything good. If we don’t believe so, then we really are nuts. “He is out of his mind,” said the relatives of Jesus. What did they know? I wonder what they are saying now.
