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Assumption
August 15, 2007
Fr. Carl McCarthy
Over the past few days, I
have been watching the story of the coal mine collapse coming out of Utah.
It has been a week and three days now, and still the six men remain
trapped hundreds of feet below the earth’s surface. If those men are
alive, it is hard to imagine what they must be going through. Many things
appear to be against them in this situation: the amount of time that has
elapsed, whether the oxygen level will sustain life, and whether they have
food and water.
Mr. Murray, the co-owner of the mine,
has acted as the mine spokesman since the collapse. From day one, he has
insisted that the miners are alive. To back up his belief, he has gone
into the mine himself, and he has ordered a hole drilled in order to lower
a camera into the mine to evaluate situation. And, repeatedly, he has gone
before the family and the world sa ying,
“Don’t give up!”
The author of the Book of Revelation
wrote to persecuted Christians, encouraging them to persevere in their
faith, despite all the odds that were stacked against them. Like Mr.
Murray, this Christian author uses vivid symbols to keep hope alive.
Often, when considering the Book of
Revelation, we think of the end times. In reality, the author writes
to encourage Christians to hang on in their faith. “Don’t allow the
enemies who persecute you to pull you in. Your faith is real. It is worth
the suffering. Give a little of yourself; stick your neck out in order to
save the deteriorating society in which you live.”
To provide hope, the author paints the sign of a woman clothed with the
sun in the sky, a moon at her feet, and a crown of stars on her head. She
is pregnant, and she labors to give birth. The woman is Mary, the mother
of the Church, and the child to whom she gives birth is Jesus, the Savior
of the world. The author also portrays a dragon, a sign of destruction,
who desires to stop God’s plan for salvation.
Perhaps more than ever, we need
encouragement in our faith. We can easily be tempted by our society to
give up, to lose hope and say it is not worth the struggle. Even today,
our church continues to wail with birth pains. More is asked of the laity
as we face decreasing numbers among the religious men, women and clergy.
We continue to develop the spirit of Vatican II, some 40 years after its
implementation. And we continue to work towards healing the hurts caused
by religious leaders, who misused their power with the sexual abuse
crisis. To stay with the image, dragons still exist today, trying to knock
Christians from their foundation of faith with a sweep of their tails.
These dragons are materialism, the desire for pleasure in our “just do it”
culture, the growing fear of terrorism, violence and war, and a
smorgasbord approach to religion, which destroys our Catholic identity of
faith.
God says to us, “Don’t give up!” Keep
your faith. Don’t allow the pressure of the world to deceive you. There is
hope. Mary is a model to us as children of God. Though she did not
understand what was asked of her when she was told that she would bear a
son, who would bring fruit to the world, she gave herself totally over to
God and rejoiced in God’s presence. She kept her faith, and the divine
plan of God unfolds. On our own, we will never be sufficient. We will
never have the power that it takes to stand firmly in this world. But if
we trust in the Divine plan and place our faith in Jesus, we can rest in
God and find renewed hope.
sdrose@bellsouth.net
8-16-2007
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