Preaching To The Choir

Deacon Emilio gripped the sides of the Ambo, hard, I could see his knuckles whiten.

“I am preaching to the choir.” Smiling uncomfortably, “And how beautifully does this choir sing…but God wants more from you, wants you to sing louder…God wants more from you, much more…it’s getting worse out there…”

I was transfixed by his words. It was a daily Mass on a Tuesday this past week. The priest was not feeling well, the Deacon declared as he stood to give the homily for Father Teo. There were not many of us there on a hot July day. And there were few of us under the age of fifty.

“He’s right,” I thought, listening to his fervent, obviously inspired, words about the vulnerability of each of us but particularly of our youth. So many mired in aimless lives where pot and or other drugs provide the only joy. And decided to write a letter and send a book to one of these lost young men whom I scarcely know.

I had no doubt that this was something I should do. The idea appeared, fully formed in my mind as I sat there agreeing that we- I- need to do more the way ideas do when they are not our own. The book, letter and prayers are winging their way to him now. But will they matter to this twenty- year- old? Will they make a difference?

This faith, these mysteries we cannot understand much less articulate, this God-man, are a razors edge. Long ago I learned that the fervor, the passion of this most precious gift of faith could not be injected, infused into another. That too is mystery. In his remarkable book, The Lord, Romano Guardini helps me get closer to an understanding.

It seems that upon entering the world, God renounced his omnipotence; he, Truth, left his mantle of irresistibility outside the gates of the earth, in order to permit people to close their hearts to him if they so desired. Purposely, God limited his illimitable radiance, wrapping himself in a darkness witch enabled men to withstand and even reject his rays. Perhaps in imposing these limits on himself, God was conforming to the weakness of the creatures to whom he descended…Perhaps it is man’s weakness which renders God ‘weak.’ And not only man’s natural limitations, but his sin, his incoherence, his balking contrariness. Self revealing truth needs the will of the recipient in order to penetrate.

Will. Such a small trivial looking word. But apparently it contains the power of Life, of wisdom, of salvation. But, of course, that statement galvanizes so many more questions. Which I cannot answer. Leaving me to trust in this Jesus, this Son of Man who knows each of us better than we can ever know ourselves.