2nd Sunday in OT 2021 - "What to do with the time that is given us"

 A few months ago, I was named by the bishop as spiritual director for the Legion of Mary for the West Side of Cleveland. And last night was our monthly meeting for the officers of the different Legion of Mary groups in the west side parishes. And, I have to be honest, it wasn’t a great meeting. We’ve been using conference calling for a few months, as we cannot meet in person. And we got about 20 minutes into the meeting when we realized that the new conference calling service had limited the number of participants and about half the people weren’t there. We then decided to go back to our old service, which we stopped using because of this terrible static that would cause the meeting to stop. 

At each meeting, we read from the Legion of Mary Handbook, and as spiritual director, I give an allocution on the reading, a short reflection on how the legion of mary principles apply to our current situation. And with all the problems we were having with this conference call, and with all the political turmoil, and COVID and everything, the holy spirit provided the perfect reading. 

The reading from the Legion of Mary Handbook dealt with discouragement. How sometimes in the work of the Legion of Mary, and the work of the Church in general, meets with resistance, as if the entire world were against us, not to mention the powers of hell. It certainly seemed that way last night. There’s also discouragement, isn’t there, when our most devoted labors bear little fruit. You begin to wonder if all the effort is worth it.

Then the reading went on to describe how, the chief danger of discouragement, isn’t from the fact that all these forces are against us. The real danger is that we forget that the chief source of discouragement is often ourselves…we forget that we do not get to choose the time or the circumstances in which we are tasked with laboring for God. We forget that God has chosen us, to labor for him, now, in 2021, with all of 2021’s challenges and problems.

The founder of the Legion of Mary and the author of our Handbook was a layman named Frank Duff. A devout Irish Catholic, whose cause for canonization is underway. And in last night’s reading, Servant of God Frank Duff quoted a religious sister, named Janet Erskine Stuart, whom I had never heard of before. Janet Erskine Stuart was a convert to Catholicism, she converted around the age of 21 from the Church of England, her father in fact, was an Anglican minister. Janet Erskine Stuart certainly faced and overcame discouragement. She knew that her conversion would cost her—family and friends—but she could not deny her call to conversion. 

Three years after her conversion to Catholicism she joined the Society of the Sacred Heart, a religious congregation for women, having communities here in Europe and later here in the US. Janet Erskine Stuart would go on to serve as the fourth Mother Superior of her order. 

Again, here’s a woman who faced some serious challenges in her life: the pressure of family to not follow where Christ was leading her, the challenges of governing a burgeoning religious order as it began to grow internationally. 

And so Frank Duff the founder of the Legion of Mary, so aptly quotes Mother Janet Erskine Stuart in overcoming the danger of discouragement, when she writes “If you look to Sacred History, Church History, and even to your own experience which each year must add to, you will see that God’s work is never done in ideal conditions, never as we should have imagined or chosen.” In other words, the difficult conditions of our work, and the challenges of the age in which we live, should not be a cause for discouragement. 

We Catholics in 2021, would never have imagined, and we never would have chosen, to be Catholic in the age of COVID-19 and the political corruption and turmoil that surrounds us. Who would choose this? Not to mention the growing secularism and scandal which has caused so many Catholics over the past 50 years simply to leave the Church, which causes us still such difficulty in evangelizing non-believers.

And yet, the Legion of Mary Handbook makes this vital point. It says “For it is ever God’s pleasure to show his power by extracting success from unpromising conditions and by accomplishing his greatest projects with inadequate instruments.” We live in what we would call unideal conditions. But God is so great that he can extract great success in these times, and he chooses to use us, we imperfect instruments, for the vital work of the Church, now in 2021.

J.R.R. Tolkien makes a similar point, which immediately sprang to mind. In his Lord of the Rings, his main character Frodo, speaking about the evil of his age, the evil rising in Mordor, and this pressing need to undertake the terrible journey to bring the ring of power to the cracks of Mount Doom, Frodo says “I wish it need not have happened in MY time. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

This lesson is even evident in our Gospel today. There is John the Baptist, standing with two of his disciples, and as Jesus walks by, he proclaims, he evangelizes,  “Behold, the Lamb of God.” In the original greek of the Gospel, the text reads, “Ide o amnos tu theu.”  Behold the Lamb of God. The Lamb, the ‘amnos’—was a very special type of lamb, one that would be used in sacrificial offering. And John is telling his disciples that Jesus is the lamb who will be sacrificed for the sins of the world.  Following him, would have consequences. It wouldn’t be easy. With that in mind, they follow him anyway. 

And John’s disciples, which included Andrew, the brother of peter, could have said, “uh, no thanks. I’m looking for truth, but, not enough to suffer for it. Let’s just keep doing what we’ve been doing.” Had he done that, overwhelmed by the fear of suffering, discouragement would certainly have set in. 

But Andrew, whose name, Andreas, means manliness, virtuousness, does something that should be emulated by every one of us. When the Lamb of God comes into your life, you follow him. And you tell others about him. That changed his life. That changed the life of Mother Janet Erskine Stuart. Following Jesus, despite the difficulties, despite the potential challenges, despite the risk, in this unideal moment of history changes those who choose Him over the thousand and one other things that arise .

And this lesson is applicable to our prayer life, passing on the faith to the young, spreading the faith to non-believers, engaging in the acts of charity. If we wait for what we think are ideal circumstances to do the work of God, then we will sit and wait for something that will never come. If you are waiting for some ideal condition to get serious about your prayer life or to study the bible or begin a new charitable endeavor, to enter the convent or seminary, or to develop a new skill for the service of others…it's not tomorrow, when we hope the conditions will be right, it’s now! “Speak, for your servant is listening” in the words of Samuel…this is the prayer of a heart open to doing the will of God no matter what the circumstances. 

Let us dare to utter those same words, with that same openness, trust that God knew what he was doing when he chose us for the work of the Gospel in 2021, and this is the only time that we’ve been given for the glory of God and salvation of souls.