On this morning of St Patrick’s Day where I find myself on the Thursday of the first week of Lent, today’s Scriptures echo inside of me about the happenings and encounters over the past several weeks. I am grateful for the opportunity of reflecting on them while I worked yesterday afternoon cleaning out the gutters of my front extension canopy.
While cleaning gutters is a dirty, messy task, it was the perfect opportunity for reflection so as to integrate all that happened in, around and to me in the last several weeks. And, it was the perfect metaphor for working through everything and every encounter that profoundly affected me. Upon completion when I achieved success, and the water was running clear out of my downspouts, I felt that I had not only cleaned my gutters but has also managed to clean myself. I was able to integrate the happenings and my encounters so as to find their meaning and life lessons. I vowed to myself to work at applying my learning so as to change my behavior and my perspective. And, when I completed that prayer vow, I felt God’s love smiling in my heart. I caught myself smiling as I put away my ladder, garden hose and various other work tools back in the storage shed. God is so good and awesome always.
The first part of today’s Scriptures which resonated with me was Queen Esther’s prayer:
“And now, come to help me, an orphan.
Put in my mouth persuasive words in the presence of the lion
and turn his heart to hatred for our enemy,
so that he and those who are in league with him may perish.
Save us from the hand of our enemies;
turn our mourning into gladness
and our sorrows into wholeness.”(Est C:24-25)
While Queen Esther’s prayer in the first reading spoke to me, parts of it did not sit well. The part about hatred for enemy and petitioning that the enemy and those who are with the enemy may perish really bothered me because I heard Jesus’ Gospel message, “love your enemies” whispered in my heart. And, scenes of how Jesus treated his enemies and those who persecuted Him flashed through my mind.
Last Saturday, I was on a Lenten retreat with some of our high school youth and their families in our three parishes. Our retreat was entitled “Come Back to Me with All Your Heart.” The retreat was about conflict resolution, forgiveness and reconciliation. I reviewed with our high school students, parents and grandparents the different types of conflict as well as the different types of responses to conflict including the Catholic Church’s sanctioned peace-making responses to conflict. We talked about, reflected on and prayed about all the ways we are in conflict with each other and with God and our responses to those conflicts. As well as how those conflicts and inappropriate responses to conflict can and may involve injuring and breaking relationships and sin.
My preparation for the retreat as well as the retreat experience caused me to take a personal look at my conflicts and responses to conflict. And, in praying with the Scripture passages and reading the quotes from the Catechism and Canon law, I truly understood and took to heart the peace-making responses to conflict. While preparing for the retreat, I worked to put into practice the peace-making responses to conflicts that I found myself encountering prior to the retreat. And much to my surprise, those conflicts became opportunities for growing in my faith because I could see and feel God’s grace at work in me and in the conflicts. I had many “a-ha” moments when I found grace in these unexpected moments of conflict. I learned that God’s presence and grace are truly with me all the time….not just in the times of happiness and good will but also in the moments of conflict, confrontation, attack, injury and brokenness. AND, when I learned that and took that meaning to heart, my faith grew from a knowing that God is with me always. Because I took this life lesson to heart and owned it, I could anchor myself in God’s loving presence in the midst of attack and injury. Also, I could anchor myself in God’s loving presence to prevent myself from attacking or injuring others in the midst of conflict. I learned the meaning of “turning the other cheek.”
As I read the Psalm response for today: Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me (138:3a); I remember that during the most difficult and challenging times in the last several weeks when I cried with extra volume for God’s help, God was there for me. I was able to work back to a state of peacefulness despite the storms created by conflict and challenging situations. When I read the Psalm today, I am filled with the gratefulness of God’s presence and grace in the challenging times of my life. I am grateful for how through God’s grace; I am shown the growth that I experienced. I am grateful for the grace given to me so that I can do my part in building up and supporting my relationships with family, friends and our entire human and Earth community.
In Matthew’s Gospel message (7:7-12), I hear Jesus reminding me to ask and seek as He promises that I will receive and will find. Jesus says that God will give me what I need and help me find what I seek. Much of my prayer these last several weeks has been as I journeyed with my family as one of my relatives’ battle with cancer ended. A lot of prayer has been for family and friends who were recently diagnosed with cancer and their journey through the surgery and treatments. And, much of my prayer has been for and with friends who are journeying with parents with challenging health issues that bring me face-front with the mystery of suffering and illness. My recent prayers have been with and for the Japanese people who are struggling through horrific, natural-disaster aftermath of earthquake and tsunami. Jesus’ message to ask and seek in prayer is very encouraging and brings me great consolation in all of those prayers for relief and release involving illness, suffering and death.
And, Jesus’ message ends with His quoting from the law and the prophets, “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.” With that statement, I come full circle back to what I learned about responding to the conflicts of my life. Jesus’ message inspires and motivates me to do my best at resolving the conflicts of my life in peaceful ways. Jesus inspires me to follow His example….to do what He did.
Who would have thought that cleaning out the gutters would be the perfect exercise for putting the pieces of the puzzle of my life together in such a way as to recognize the learning in which God has been teaching me in the last several weeks? And, because “God is always on time,” God speaks through the Scriptures today providing the glue to keep the puzzle pieces together.
Thank you, God. Amen.
