Fr. Bill's Weekly Message
for 8/30/98
Dear Parishioners:
This past week, in the Office of Readings from the Liturgy
of the Hours, I came across this from St. Augustine. I've probably put
this in the bulletin, but it as apropos today as when it was first written.
Emphasis is mine.
"Whenever we suffer some affliction, we should regard
it both as a punishment and as a correction. Our holy Scriptures themselves
do not promise us peace, security, and rest. On the contrary, the Gospel
makes no secret of the troubles and temptations that await us, but it also
says that he who perseveres to the end will be saved. What good has
there ever been in this life since the time when the first man received
the just sentence of death and the curse from which Christ our Lord has
delivered us?
"So we must not grumble, my brothers, for as the Apostle
says: Some of them murmured and were destroyed by serpents. Is there any
affliction now endured by mankind that was not endured by our fathers before
us? What sufferings of ours even bear comparison with what we know of their
sufferings? And yet you hear people complaining about this present day
and age because things were so better in former times. I wonder what would
happen if they could be taken back to the days of our ancestors -- would
we not still hear them complaining? You may think past ages were good,
but it is only because you are not living in them.
"It amazes me that you who have now been freed from the
curse, who have believed in the Son of God, who have been instructed in
the holy Scriptures -- that you can think the days of Adam were good. And
your ancestors bore the curse of Adam, of that Adam to whom the words were
addressed: With sweat on your brow you shall eat your bread; you shall
till the earth from which you were taken, and it will yield you thorns
and thistles. This is what he deserved and what he had to suffer; this
is the punishment meted out to him by the just judgment of God. How than
can you think that past ages were better than your own?
"From the time of that first Adam to the time of his
descendants today, man's lot has been labor and sweat, thorns and thistles.
Have we forgotten the flood and the calamitous times of famine and war
whose history has been recorded precisely in order to keep us from complaining
to God on account of our own times? Just think what those past ages were
like! Is there one of us who does not shudder to hear or read of them?
Far from justifying complaints about our own times, they teach us how much
we have to be thankful for."
Yes indeed, we can all look back and think that the "old
days" were much better. Not really. Even in the Church, the old days were
not really any better than today. Each set of days had its own problems.
We tend, in this area as well as others, to remember selectively. We remember
what will justify our position today. While what we remember may be technically
correct, we conveniently forget aspects of reality which color our judgment.
Thank God for His kingship over the Church. If left to
us mere humans, who knows, the good old days may well have been, the good
old days.
God bless,
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