15th Sunday after Pentecost 21.9.14 Conversion
The son is restored to his mother. A marvellous event in itself, and also for what it suggests – the restoration of many sons to their Mother, the Church.
Jesus heals with a word. And so in the sacrament of Penance He heals with a word of forgiveness.
We are accustomed to hearing of the wonders of the Lord. In the Gospels, it seems that every chapter contains a miracle. We hear these and we believe them.
Yet somehow, perhaps with a tinge of sadness, we do not expect such things to happen to us.
Nothing happens to us, it seems! But we still need miracles. There are a lot of things in the world that are not as they should be. And they are beyond our power alone to change.
The miracle of forgiveness is still with us, and happens all the time. Someone goes to Confession and is restored to life, given back to Mother Church. There is no public celebration, but it is a great thing all the same.
We might believe in this much of a miracle. But can we go further and believe that large-scale conversions of sinners and unbelievers can happen in our day?
We are tempted to discouragement as we see the size of the problem and think it is too big to be overcome. For example, as we contemplate the loss of the younger generations to the Church. We can feel the sadness of the woman of Naim, but we cannot seem to get the happy ending that came to her.
We are at a fork in the road. We have a decision to make. How to react. Do we give way to despair, or do we change things for the better?
We can adopt a come-what-may attitude, leaving things to turn out as they may. Or we can apply ourselves to vigorous prayer and action to bring back the lost children.
Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear (Is 59,1)
As far as miracles go, that of converting sinners is the most urgent. The other ones are important too, but Conversion stands at the very heart of the matter.
To be at rights with God is more important than physical safety, good health, having food to eat etc. If we have Him we have eternal life.
Do we believe that the Lord can, in our time, bring about the conversion of a sinner?
We believe it can happen, and it does happen. But we also are prone to discouragement and to ease off on our prayer as our expectations contract.
We can be so knocked about by the difficulties we see on all sides that when it comes to pray we lack confidence.
We might think certain individuals, or certain types of people, are too hard to convert.
Yet miracles do happen.
We must be concerned for the danger that faces souls who are distant from God.
Moved by this concern and remembering the power of God we commit to prayer.
We lament whatever is wrong, but only as much as necessary to motivate us to action.
We pray to save as many as we can. And act in whatever way will help.
We focus on the goodness of God rather than the evil of the world. Our confidence and energy rise as we do this.
We talk of better days the Church has seen. If those were the days these are the days too. With the Lord’s help we will make them so.
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