Reaching the results of Victories may have questions:

Reaching the results of Victories may have questions: 

We could be speaking about the Churchill Downs, the Super Bowl, or the World Series of baseball.  As expected the rider who won the Churchill Downs horse race will give credit to the many who prepared this horse for a winning ability to run better than all the others.  When the owners of the winning Super Bowl and the Baseball World Series teams will stand tall taking the credit for having brought to us the best of their sport.    

But it took more than one jockey, one quarterback, or one pitcher to ensure a winning conclusion in their particular sport.  The one person who is honored for his success must remember that there are many more people that were responsible for his successful win.  

That brings us to the final honor that we should be looking forward to receiving when we stand before Christ, the final judge of all the souls before him.  If there is a sound result of peace when hearing the words “well done my servant” know that like the sports victories it is more than the one person who is responsible for the acclamation of spiritual success.  

What about the nuns or CCD teachers that worked tirelessly to instill God’s word and the meaning of grace into your young years of catechesis? And the manner of your local priest(s) who heard your confessions and became a source of forgiveness and absolution any time you needed them.  You cannot discard the poor whom you assisted, especially when reaching them was difficult or almost impossible due to the insults of others who asked you why you spent so much time with futile excesses of those who didn’t help themselves?

This is your opportunity to remember that upon that victory you are receiving exists the Passion of Christ without which you wouldn’t have had except for the plan to save all of us at God’s decision to extend mercy to each of us.

None of us should forget that the Passion of Christ begins when the Body of Jesus is brutally nailed to the tree of life; painfully, without mercy by the enemies of God - Pharisees, citizens who glee over the suffering of another human being, the soldiers who make wagers to collect his clothing as a souvenir of their efforts to ensure he would not forget what pain really is.  

Each time we pray the rosary have a crucifix beside us in order to share each blow of the hammer, each drop of blood that is the payment for our sins, and each sign of the silent stroke of ignominy that cries out to his Father - our Father - the Holy Spirit that waits to take his Spirit as the ransom for what you and I did in life.

Become absorbed into the fullness of Almighty God; not beside him - but within him  He abides within our soul; should we not abide within him?  This is the pure truth of our relationship with the Holy Trinity!  Without that closeness our prayers and sacrifices mean nothing.  

Ralph B. Hathaway