God bless anyone who speaks out for an end to war! Period. Nothing else needs to be said now, does it?
I have been reading too much about the wars that are waging all around our world and I'm feeling pretty sad about it all. Iraq, Syria, Iran, etc. There are so many armies (and individual militias) armed to the teeth and commiting murder around the world that I sometimes wonder where Almighty God is in all of this mess?
I apologise for being a bit down in this post BUT death and maiming are subjects I feel are too important to ignore and way too important to not speak out against.
Ahha but what can I do? What can anyone do?
Just last week I was reading a story about the late Mother Theresa. It seems that some private letters she had written down through the years to her "confessor" were recently made public. (Imagine that, will you?)
The gist of her communications to her confessor was that she oft times wondered where Almighty God was in this cruel cruel world?
Mother Theresa! That saint of the streets of India had doubts about the presence of God herself!
God love her...and I'm sure He did...she had doubts just like you and I do. Now...isn't that grand? I'm not being facitious when I say that. Isn't it a wonderful thing to know that a saint like Theresa herself had her feet planted in the same soil of doubt and disbelief as the rest of us? It is. It truly is. I'll tell you another thing as well. That "disbelief" of Mother Theresa was one of the greatest gifts that God could have given to either her or to us.
Now I'll be telling you why that is (so pay close attention!)
They say that God helps those who help themselves. They also say that FAITH is not based on that which we can know for sure but RATHER that which we HOPE for, based upon some type of inner feeling, or some type of inner "light", if you like.
God help me I hope the good Sisters who taught me my catechism in school don't read these scribblings!!
But I think that God gave us a good woman in Mother Theresa and he also gave us a gift of using her "doubts" and "disbeliefs" in order to make her life and her FAITH so much more believable.
When I was in school the good Sisters taught us all about the saints and their holy lives. The only problem was that these sainted men and women seemed to "saintly" to me. In other words, (and God forgive me if this is heresy), the lives and deeds of the saints weren't possible for me to imitate because they were (seemingly) of another "world". They lived lives where God was whispering in their ears and talking to them one to one like you or I might talk to a neighbor over a pint down at the boozer. No. I didn't have God's ear and never would. Ahha but now I hear that Mother Theresa was more like me (and the lads I know)! She prayed to God every day BUT admitted to her confessor that she wasn't certain if God ever heard her prayers at all. She also wondered (in her letters) whether or not God even existed? Heres the thing now...she continued to do her sainted work DESPITE her "doubts". God bless her! She was real just like you and I. She followed that "little light" inside her and made the decision to do the right things in this world in spite of her doubts and her (at times) disbelief! God bless her and God bless all of you who also have doubts and disbeliefs and who continue to do the work of God here on earth.
And pray for me.
All right now...enough said on that.
Slainte!