What is Just? My ministry as a deacon found justice for two women!

What is Just?  

My ministry as a deacon found justice for two women!

That is being justified, or asking what is my justification for today’s failures?  In either response we must discern what justice will any of us receive regarding our acceptance or rejection to follow the grace that God willingly hands to each one, out of his endless love?  

Like conversion, justification has two aspects.  Moved by grace, man turns toward God and away from sin, and so accepts forgiveness and righteousness from on high.  (CCC 2018).

Justification includes the remission of sins, sanctification, and the renewal of the inner man.  (CCC 2019).

Keeping these attributes in mind man must see the position he places himself in by either adopting or rejecting the false attractions of pleasure, acquired by insolence, without a thought of consequence in lieu of God’s grace, granted through an endless array of love.

Always before us are the traps of contempt towards God’s unending grace that would not be ours to give if we were in charge of human desires.  It has become a treacherous fall from what God intended when he said; “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness!”  (Gn 1: 26). Each time our eyes pass over this statement meant for a peaceful and trustworthy expectation of obedience through respect for the Creator, we see an opportunity to go our own way and accumulate treasures that can only destroy the entity of graciousness man has received from God.   

Place yourselves on a rocket-ship moving through the annals of outer space with no one to interfere with your choice of; “I’ll do it my way” will only become real and our finding no place to land and no one around who cares.  This is the scenario of what sin will do to us as we reject God and his justifiable decision of allowing anyone of us to continue on our journey.  This trip will  pull us further away from this grace which is there through the faith we have been given.

I like to think that each person that my ministry led me to through the hospital ministry or the Women in Recovery that I was a chaplain for, may not have found the graciousness and forgiveness from Christ had the Holy Spirit not sent me to them.  If there is no other aspect of my remaining days as a deacon to do the work the Holy Spirit uses me for, I can relish in the opportunity I found myself assisting at least one soul who would not have found the mercy of God had I not accepted my mission.

This is what justice means for the souls that are out there.  Somewhere there is more than one lost soul that has our name on their heart, known only to the Holy Spirit, that may either live or die in God’s favor, dependent on our decision to follow the grace that the Holy Spirit has placed upon our own heart of accepting the call of God.  

Had I decided to pass the one woman, in Mercy Hospital, who had been away from the Sacraments for 13 years and was being discharged the next morning, may never have been back in God’s graces without my saying yes to the Spirit’s urging to visit her.  My thoughts always caused me to ponder what her remaining days would have become had I ignored the Holy Spirit telling me to stop at her room that night.

And the young woman, Mary, who believed someone ‘s lie that the 3 things she wouldn’t be forgiven for may have died, as she finally did from full-blown aids, without the knowledge of God’s forgiveness.  Of the three years I was chaplain for POWER the opportunity to find her and show her the mercy of God may not have occurred.  My position led one more soul back to God’s graces and is now in heaven.  

These two instances through my diaconal ministry proved to me that my ordination to Holy Orders was not a waste but fulfilled one more minister to save the integrity of two women who otherwise may never had found God’s mercy and love.  This is also Justification for them.

Ralph B. Hathaway