Friday May 10, 2019
Third Week of Easter
Acts 9:31-42
Jn: 6:60-69
I often say that each of us have the tendency to make God our resource and not our relationship! We tend to think of God like SIRI—some voice out there somewhere that tells us what to do, when to turn next, when to stop. But we are so far from the relationship God wishes us to have with Him.
The Church offers a great example to us today...and yes that is why we honor the saints we don't worship saints, as is often misunderstood, we honor their example. Today we honor one of the great men of Hawaii St. Damien of Molokai. Fr Damien came from Belgium as a missionary priest to Hawaii in 1873 to minister to the people there who had leprosy and stayed there 15 years. It was in those 15 years that God made him a saint! The great author Robert Lewis Stevenson wrote of Fr Damien that "it was the intrusive and decisive heroism of Damien" Damien's willingness to live and die among the disfigured and poor and forgotten! This was the heroic virtue that made this priest leper a saint of God. He was a man of purpose, strong will and character. Damian was a man of great trust in God in spite of many obstacles he faced he gave his patients hope and courage.