It
started out like any other day. I accompanied my mother to the
grocery store. I was in elementary school and everything was going
great in the world. This trip to the store was going just as well as
any other trip. I don't quite remember what happened next. I think
I found something that had caught my interest on a shelf somewhere.
Perhaps it was a toy or perhaps it was a treat that I enjoyed. It
might have been something shiny that was hanging somewhere. All I
know is that I turned to show my mom this wondrous piece of treasure
that I had just found, and that was when it happened: my mother was
lost! I know. You might be saying to yourself, “Father, are you
sure it wasn't actually you who had gotten lost?” Yes, I'm certain
of this. I knew exactly where I was. It was my mom who had wondered
off. She should have known that we were going down the aisle with
all those interesting things in it that I would want to look at.
But
then the worrying began. Where did she go? I look up and down the
aisle; she is no where to be seen. I go to the end of the aisle to
see if I can see where she turned. Now this store wasn’t very
large with just a few people walking around, but from my point of
view it might as well have been ten football fields wide and filled
with hundreds of people: I couldn’t see her anywhere. She was
really lost this time.
My
mind began to play through the possible scenarios of what might
happen to me. What if I don't find her? She wouldn't leave without
me – would she? What if she kept going and didn't notice that I
wasn't there until she got home? What if they lock up the store and
leave me inside? I'll be done for. I could see my family talking
years later. “Whatever happened to Joe? Oh. We lost him in the
grocery store back in '85: never heard from him again. It was
tragic, but then we got a dog”.
I
was frantic. I needed to find my mother before she completely forgot
about me. I began calling out for her, “MOM! MOM!” Of course,
as you may have guessed, my Mom was just in the next aisle over. I
for one was greatly relieved to see her again (the whole ordeal was
all of twenty seconds). My mom was more than a little embarrassed
that her son was yelling at the top his lungs in public. She had not
forgotten about me at all, and obviously I made it out of the store
without being locked in it forever.
As
that story helped illustrate, I have always been a worrier. For as
long as I can remember, I’ve tended to worry about things that many
people do not give that much attention to. I am a master at making
mountains out of molehills. I feel very blessed that as an adult,
God has given me the grace to not worry or jump to conclusions as
much as I used to. I truly believe that it was through the grace of
the Sacrament of Holy Orders that I was able to get past so much of
the worrying that I have done in my life. I still worry at times,
but now I can get past worrying about the small things and place more
of my trust in God.
I
joked in my story about thinking that my own mother might forget
about me. Sometimes my childhood imagination would get away from me
and I would worry about silly things like that. But deep down, I
always knew that my mother could never forget me. Just as our first
reading from Isaiah tells us, a mother cannot forget about her child.
There is such a connection between mother and child it is simply
impossible. All the mothers here in the Church today will no doubt
tell us the same thing. But even though our life experiences tell us
this, we still sometimes worry in this life as if our Father in
Heaven has forgotten about us. God tells us through the Prophet
Isaiah, “Even should she forget, I will never forget you.” I
think we all know this just as well as we know our own parents on
earth could never forget us. Yet, when things get hard and stressful
in our lives, we blame God, as if He has forgotten about us. We
complain that He is the one that left us, when in reality we were the
child who left the parent to go look at a shiny new toy in the store.
I suppose it is because of our pride that we tend to want to blame
others for our misfortunes. We might not necessarily blame God for
causing bad things to happen to us, but many times we blame Him for
leaving us when we needed Him most. Isn't that just as ridiculous?
God will never forsake us.
This
passage that we heard in the Gospel of Matthew has a parallel passage
in the Gospel of Luke. Both are some of my favorite passages from
Sacred Scripture. They are wonderful reminders for someone like me
who tends to worry, that there is really no need to worry. “Do not
worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your
body, what you will wear.” We then move on to more specific
examples. First, Jesus gives us the image of the birds. In Luke's
version, He talks about the ravens. Birds don't have to grow their
food; they don't have to gather it into barns or containers. They
don't have to prepare it to make it suitable for eating. Jesus even
adds that we are more important than they are, and God still gives
those friendly feathered friends of ours everything that they need.
Christ
moves on to the wild flowers. Some translations refer to the lilies
of the field. The point is all they do is grow. They don't have to
work for their beautiful colors, they don't have to make clothes for
themselves or buy them, but they are so beautiful that King Solomon
in all his opulence couldn't compare to them. Now I personally love
a beautiful flower garden in full bloom and I love seeing a field of
wild flowers, but the truth is flowers are no more important than the
grass and weeds that we cut and put in brush piles. Yet God gives
them all they need. Will He not provide for us all the more?
It's
easy for anybody to start worrying about things in life. In fact, I
don’t think we will ever be completely free of all worry in this
life. But God can help us through the worst of it. Trust in Him and
do not worry. He’s closer than you might think.
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