How does belief in the final resurrection from the dead affect your family’s daily life?
by Mary Sellars MalloyEarlier this year, when travel was still safe and life was at its usual pace, I traveled to San Antonio to lead a day-long retreat on Mary and the saints. One of the retreat day segments focused on the Communion of Saints: the pilgrims on Earth, the souls in Purgatory, and the saints in Heaven. Together, we are one family of faith caught up in a great procession to the heavenly kingdom, and our mission is to help each other reach our heavenly home.
As we live with the reality and the impact of the coronavirus, living out our shared mission becomes all the more important. What if, each day, we simply looked to our left and our right, before us and behind us, to see who needs help, encouragement, a friend, shelter, and love? What if we reached out a hand to help the struggling and the lost return to or join the great procession? In the words of “The Servant Song” (Richard Gallard): “We are pilgrims on a journey, we are trav’lers on the road; we are here to help each other walk the mile and bear the load.”
Belief in the final resurrection, belief in eternal life with God and the saints and angels in Heaven, puts this short earthly journey and trials such as the current pandemic into perspective. This is not our home. The pain, suffering, and challenges we may face while here are but moments in the span of time. When death separates us from those we love, we are certain in hope that we will one day be reunited in Heaven. This is what motivates us to keep moving forward with others on the journey, striving to make it to that kingdom where our loved ones and all the saints have gone before us are extending their hearts and their hands—praying for us, cheering us on, and leading us home.
By Mary Clifford Morrell
I’ve always been fascinated by the story of Jonah and the Whale.
As a child, reading my full-color illustrated book of Bible stories, I was most interested in how Jonah got in the whale and what it might have been like for him sitting in the whale’s belly for three days. I never questioned the veracity of the story because, after all, if God can create a universe, God can certainly arrange for an errant Jonah to have a time-out in a most unusual place.
As I grew older, I thought more about how Jonah, the reluctant prophet, ended up in trouble because he tried to run away from God, and I often thought my life was going in a similar direction. If I didn’t stop disobeying what I knew God was telling me to do, or not to do, I could end up underwater myself.
As a college student, reading the classics, I found myself wondering if Jonah ever felt like Francis Thompson, the English poet who wrote the exquisite poem “The Hound of Heaven,” which describes an unrelenting God pursuing a soul seeking to hide, as a hound relentlessly follows a hare.
As an adult, I have learned that there is more to the story than a man running from God and ending up in the belly of a big fish. The essential element of the story is the “why.”
God had a job for Jonah to do – to preach repentance to the Ninevites, whose reputation for evil was known to God. Jonah didn’t want to be that prophet so he ran from God and tried to sail away to Tarshish. While he slept in the hold of the ship a storm arose and the seas threatened to capsize the boat.
The sailors figured out that Jonah was fleeing from his God, so to appease God they threw Jonah overboard and the storm ceased. But God saved Jonah by providing a big fish that swallowed him and kept him safe for three days – the length of time it took Jonah to repent for running away.
God heard Jonah’s prayers and commanded the fish to spit Jonah up on the shore so Jonah could finally undertake the task God asked of him – to go to Nineveh and preach to the Ninevites so they would change their ways and turn back to God.
Jonah preached and the Ninevites listened. Everyone, including the king, fasted, put on sackcloth and ashes and repented. Scripture says, “When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way, he repented of the evil he had threatened to do to them; he did not carry it out.”
And Jonah was angry. His reaction was essentially, “I knew this was going to happen!” Jonah admitted to God this was the “why,” the reason he ran away from God in the first place. He didn’t want God to forgive these enemies of Israel.
Jonah responded to God, “O Lord, is this not what I said while I was still in my own country? This is why I fled at first toward Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, abounding in kindness, repenting of punishment. So now, LORD, please take my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.”
God simply asked, “Are you right to be angry?”
Reflecting on my own life, I realize I had to learn the difference between being angry at others’ bad behavior and being angry at the thought of God treating them with mercy and forgiveness should they repent.
There are times when I am like Jonah, not yet ready to forgive. But with God following on my heels, I may get there eventually.
Mary Regina Morrell is a Catholic journalist, author, and syndicated columnist who has served the dioceses of Metuchen and Trenton, New Jersey, and RENEW International in the areas of catechesis and communication.
By Mary Clifford Morrell
Following a recent car trip, my daughter-in-law shared a memorable moment she had with one of my granddaughters – a child known for
By Mary Clifford Morrell
You never know what’s going to send a child into a meltdown.
Last week it was a box of crayons, 16-count to be exact.
My two-year-old grandson dropped it on the floor and we didn’t notice that one rolled under the couch.
I helped him pick them all up and when we were done, one was still missing. I told him not to worry, it was just one crayon. I tried to close the box to put them away and then the tears started. “No!” he exclaimed, attempting to pull the box from my hands.
He was as upset as any two-year-old can get and adamant that we could not close the box without the missing crayon. He felt the incompleteness of it. Just one crayon, but one crayon that counted.
So when I was assigned to write a newspaper article on the census, I found it more than coincidental. The main gist of the story was why it’s important for everyone to participate, and how many faith-based entities are offering programs to educate and assist hard-to-count populations to participate.
I interviewed a number of public officials and program administrators who shared their wisdom and expertise about the process of the census, which is mandated by the U.S. Constitution to take place every 10 years. But one person’s very simple yet profound statement evidenced the bottom line for me.
He said, “The most important reason for everyone to participate in the census is because, as children of God, everyone counts.”
When I hear those words in my head even now, I get choked up, because when I watch the news or even experience, in word and deed, how some of us strive to belittle others, it hurts my heart.
This is not what Jesus taught us. It is not what he prayed for, and I believe “counting out” others would break his heart too. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus laments over Jerusalem, saying, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her young under her wings, but you were unwilling.”
Jesus, fully human and fully divine, expressed a wide range of emotions, including joy, frustration, anger, sadness, and grief. I have to believe that in seeing how we so often treat each other, the Jesus of Scripture would grieve.
Writing an article inevitably leads me to some self-reflection, so It seemed that Lent would be an appropriate time for me to reflect on the question, “Who counts in my life?” beginning with my family and expanding out to my friends, the broader community and other countries. One lesson came from paying attention to the posts I skimmed over on Facebook. It was a hard reality to face.
When you come to the realization that you have a lot of work to do in order to live your faith the way you should, it can be overwhelming and often leads to justification as to why change is not necessary. We may fool ourselves but we certainly can’t fool God.
But where do we start? With the children.
It may be hard for us to make a personal change right away, but we can certainly make sure our children grow up learning that every person has inherent dignity and is loved by God.
Or maybe it is the children who will teach us, with a box of crayons.
Mary Regina Morrell is a Catholic journalist, author, and syndicated columnist who has served the dioceses of Metuchen and Trenton, New Jersey, and RENEW International in the areas of catechesis and communication.