Synchronicity As the Work of the Holy Spirit

 

 

Universal Amnesia

Wednesday, February 16th, 2022

Universal Amnesia

In a few weeks we will begin the season of Lent. These 40 days are a gift that the Church gives us each year: a chance to remember who we really are, and where it is that we are going.

Deacon Lex Ferrauiola

Franciscan Father Richard Rohr shares a story about a young couple putting their newborn infant to bed for the night in the nursery. Their four-year-old son comes in and says to them, “I want to talk to the baby!” They answer him, “Yes, you can talk to him from now on.” But the boy is persistent, “Please, Mommy and Daddy, I want to talk to him now, and by myself.”

Surprised and curious, they let the young boy into the nursery and cup their ears to the door, wondering what he might be saying. This is what they heard their four-year old son say to his baby brother, “Quick, tell me where you came from. Quick, tell me who made you. I’m starting to forget!”

And so is it with each of us.

When God made you and me, God embraced each of us like a mother would bundle up a beloved child to go out into the cold for the very first time. And like a parent might slip a little identification note into a child’s pocket, just in case he or she should get lost, God put a little tiny piece of Godself inside of us. That little piece of God inside of you and me and every person who has ever lived is our immortal soul. And life is the journey of our soul back home to its loving Creator.

But something happens on that journey, usually around the age of seven, the age of reason. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we eat from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and we become self-conscious. We get distracted by many kinds of fruit: the approval of others, the attraction of things, the desire for possessions, and the need for control.  And we start to forget. We lose touch with our soul and with God.

Father Rohr calls this condition ‘Universal Amnesia’. We have forgotten who we really are and where it is that we are going. Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent are meant to remind us that we are children of God on our journey home.

As followers of Jesus, we have the benefit of a map for that journey. That map is the Gospel. Jesus lays it out in detail in the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes. And when the Pharisees asked him what they must do to gain eternal life, he summed it up for them and for us: “Love God with your whole heart and your whole mind and your whole soul, and love others — love others — as you love yourself.”

This Lent, as we sacrifice some little pleasures, some things we really enjoy, let us remember who we really are and where it is that we are going. Let us sit before Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament and ponder how well we are following his map in the Gospel. And let us do this quickly before we, like that little four-year old boy, start to forget

 

Faith When Life Gets Us Wet

Monday, February 7th, 2022

When the disciples saw Jesus walking on the sea, they were terrified. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” Peter yelled out to him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” Jesus said, “Come on, Peter!” And Peter jumped out of the boat and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But seeing and hearing the wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and took hold of him, and said to him, “Peter, you have such little faith, why did you doubt?” Matthew 14: 24 – 32

Deacon Lex Ferrauiola

I love Saint Peter. He was a man after my own heart. He was emotional, impulsive, and quick to panic. I can relate to that. Yet Peter was one of Jesus’ very best friends. Jesus trusted him so much that he left him in charge; and here we are, twenty centuries later, in Peter’s church.

But in his impulsive exuberance in today’s Gospel, Peter was expecting Jesus to make magic; to make it possible for him to defy the laws of physics — God’s laws of physics — and walk on water. And when that didn’t happen, he panicked and started to sink. Our Lord reached out his hand and pulled his friend to safety, “O, you of little faith, why did you doubt?”

Life is a gift, but it’s not easy. There are times when things happen around us and to us that can make us panic and even call us to despair:  a diagnosis or recurrence of cancer, betrayal by a friend or a spouse, loss of livelihood, death of a loved one, news of a suicide — the list goes on and on. And when these things happen, we get wet and, like Peter, we can start to sink. That’s when faith comes into play. Jesus never promised magic. He never promised Peter that he wouldn’t get wet; he never promised that life wouldn’t get us wet. He only promised that he would always be there to pull us safely home to God.

The Jesuit theologian Father John McMurray wrote that those who have an immature, religious faith believe something like this, “Fear not, trust in God, and the things you are afraid of won’t happen to you.” But those who possess a mature, enduring faith believe much more deeply, “Fear not, trust in God, and the things you are afraid of may happen to you, but you’ll get through them with God.”

Mature, enduring faith does not expect or wait for magic. It never gives up no matter how wet, how wounded life gets us. It trusts that no matter what happens, somehow, someway, somewhere, whether in this life or in the next, God will make us whole.

The bad things that happen in life are locked in a moment in time. While we are alive, we cannot see beyond that locked moment; but our immortal souls are timeless. And somewhere deep in our souls, beyond our fears, beyond our thoughts, our anxieties and grief, there is an intuitive knowledge that in the end God will make everything okay. If that weren’t true, we wouldn’t be writing and reading this blog today.

Let us pray that our faith will continue to mature and endure. And let us always know that Jesus is walking alongside us here in time, walking on the water, holding our hand, bringing us safely home.

With love, Deacon Lex

deaconlex@gmail.com

Lex Ferrauiola is a husband, father, grandfather and a Catholic deacon serving as a pastoral minister and hospital chaplain within the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey. His newest book, All Shall Be Well: Finding God Among the Pots and the Pans is available now.

$12.00 available at Amazon.com and through local booksellers (ISBN-13 979-8767368921)    

 

 

 

All Shall Be Well . . .