Minister’s Insights

By Patrick Mendes, SFO National Minister

"If someone of worldly means sees a brother in need and refuses him compassion, how can the love of God remain in him? Children, let us love not in word or speech, but in deed and in truth." (1 John 17-19)

     In our Scripture Study class this week, this passage resonated with me. As this issue of TAD-USA reaches you, we will be well into Lent and approaching Easter. I have always seen Lent as the quiet time; use the word "solemn" if you like, when we prepare to celebrate our redemption, certainly, but more to give thanks for our Lord's immense act of love – His crucifixion and death...and ultimately, His resurrection. "If we have died with Him, we shall live with Him..."

    Our Lenten practices of fasting, alms giving and prayer, especially the Way of the Cross, invite us to a heightened awareness of God's love for us and certainly His commandment to "love one another as I have loved you."

    As we reflect on the various Stations of the Cross, do we see Jesus in those who fall for even the third time in their particular sorrows and trials of their lives?

    Do we recognize at that time that we were able to help them, the gift our Lord gave us to be? Did we recognize the face of the sorrowful mother of our Lord in the mother with the small children that we served at the soup kitchen? Did we, like Simon of Cyrene help someone bear a heavy cross? Did we, like Veronica, wipe the face of Jesus in that homebound parishioner to whom we bring the Holy Eucharist, a word of encouragement and a gift of presence? Do we see Jesus, stripped of his garments in the poor and marginalized that are stripped of their dignity? Do we see Jesus, poor and crucified in everyone we meet and do we treat them with the unconditional love and respect Jesus gave everyone? Do we recognize and rejoice in the fact that each time we have done an act of kindness, no matter how small, that the opportunity to be Jesus present to those whom God sent into our lives is a gift from the Lord Himself.

    Let us give thanks for all the opportunities we have had to serve one another in our families and fraternities, and let us give thanks also for those opportunities we have had to love, as Jesus loved, all of the "lepers" in our lives - those who don't agree with us; those whose spirituality is different from ours; those whose language is different from ours.

    Rejoice and give thanks for every opportunity we have had to be Jesus present.

    Rejoice in the great love of God that led Him to become incarnate to teach us how to love and sacrifice, by His own love and sacrifice.

    Rejoice and be glad for His resurrection is our resurrection. The Lord is risen! He is truly risen!

    May the risen Savior, source of all compassion and love, bless you abundantly this Easter and preserve us in our ministry to be His hands and heart to all who enter our lives.

                                                                                                                                 Blessed Easter to you all!