What happens when our personal “structures” are reduced to rubble? For many of us who live here on the coasts of New Jersey and New York, Mark 13:1-8 has become a reality. Hurricane Sandy has enabled us to witness an apocalyptic time: the collapse of what we had; what we valued; what we took for granted. Can we say “everything will be all right” without it sounding like an ingratiating platitude? Embedded in the rubble can we hear what God is trying to say to us? How do we trust in the Holy Spirit when we are too cold to listen, too frightened to hear? What can we learn from the despair in the faces of our brothers and sisters? Perhaps Jesus is telling us in Mark to Pull together in these hard times. This is how you get through. I’ll be with you too, and I will show you the way. Things will get difficult, but stick together and remember what is important in life – to love one another
In the words of John Powell:
There have
been quite a few times when I have felt the winds of God’s grace in the sails
of my small boat. Sometimes these graces have moved me in pleasant and sunlit directions.
At other times the requested acts of love were born in the darkness of struggle
and suffering. There have been spring times and there have been long cold
winters of struggle for survival. God has come to me at times with the purest
kindness, at times with the most affirming encouragement, and at other times
with bold frightening challenges. I think that all of us have to watch and
pray, to be ready to say “yes” when God’s language is concrete and his request
is specific-“yes” in the sunlit springtimes and “yes’ in the darkness of winter
nights. (John Powell, S.J., The Christian Vision, The Truth That
Sets Us Free, p147)
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