RBWords

     Patient endurance can be a very difficult challenge in matters of faith!  The Letter to the Hebrews and Jesus' teaching regarding the sowing of the seeds of faith in today's gospel scripture exhort the disciples to patience!  The work of God is most often done through ordinary means and instant results are not the norm!  The same is true in cases of trial and suffering.  I am reminded of the many students who came to me during my campus ministry years who were from even strong Catholic backgrounds who found themselves besieged either by non-believers, or intense evangelical believers, or by lifestyle choices that were clearly not in accord with Catholic tradition!  It was difficult for them to hear words like, "Just be patient and faithful.  If you need to know more about the faith (and that was often the problem), we can work on that.  But don't lose confidence in God or your Catholic heritage!"  It seemed easier to assume a form of "armchair agnosticism" where they "take a vacation from religion (if not faith)" or join the tight little group of fundamentalists or just throw all lifestyle caution to the winds and "go with the flow."  The "relativism" and "secularism" that Pope Benedict XVI constantly speaks about has been alive for a long time!

     When those latter two challenges are added to scandalous behavior on the part of clergy or other religious leaders, it becomes very difficult to "stay the course" and look beyond the all too human failings that are both personal AND institutional in the church and in those who claim to be disciples!  As an avid student of history, I marvel that the church has managed to last as long as it has except that the Holy Spirit continues to find a way to continue the faith with limited persons and institutions!  I marvel at the faith of those Christians in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Syria, whose churches are bombed and neighborhoods ravaged by violence.  The "big picture" brings life to the words of the Letter to the Hebrews.  We who find "inconvenience" hard to endure in our faith here in the U.S.A. need to know what that faith is doing for those whose lives are endangered every day by war and famine!  A sense of perspective does wonders for patience!  AMEN