The Sunday Sermon Archive

Dear Friend,

Should we have compassion for the ruler in today's Gospel or should we congratulate him? His son whom he dearly loved was at the point of death. This is a most terrible burden upon the shoulders of anyone. To lose a child is such a great sorrow, that it tempts many to question God. We know that "all things work for the good of those who love God", but either we do not really believe it or we perhaps more correctly must question whether we truly love God.

God often takes those we love away from us, but we must never doubt God's goodness. God knows the proper time and place to remove each of us from this world and it is always the best for our eternal souls. Some may be taken before they have the opportunity to offend God and be eternally damned; others may be taken before they have the opportunity to place themselves in a deeper place in Hell. Or perhaps our loved ones may be taken away from us for the benefit of the living. Maybe we become too attached to those whom we love and forget God and this is God's way of drawing us back to Him.

Occasionally there are those who love God to such an extent that this human flesh of ours is no longer strong enough to prevent their souls from uniting themselves to God for all of eternity. Such souls are eager to be untied to God and to be able to shed off this corrupt and corrupting flesh that keeps us in this "valley of tears."

If we will only remember to turn to God in our times of suffering and sadness we will find that He is a loving God. What He takes from us, and we accept in loving obedience to the will of God, He generously repays many times over _ if not in this life at least in the next. Let us not forget the loss of Job and how because of His acceptance of the will of God, his loss was repaid many times over.

The ruler in today's Gospel did not lose his son. This deathly sickness of the boy brought sadness and suffering to the ruler and his family, but it also brought them to Christ for help. Often we are brought to a realization of our helplessness so that we will come with more confidence to God. When we lean upon ourselves we stumble and fall, but when we lean upon God we are eternally strong. "I can do all things in Him who strengthens me."

This is the second miracle that Christ performed in Cana. (The first was the changing of water to wine.) In this miracle He did not go to the boy but healed him from a distance. This miracle demanded of the poor father an act of faith. "The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him." This act of faith on the part of the ruler was itself a miracle and a gift from God. This is the beginning of his faith. Very seldom does God give us everything all at once but we receive His graces in steps or stages. We must cooperate with the graces which we have already been given before we are worthy or ready to receive greater ones. This is the case with the ruler today. His necessity (The deathly illness of his son.) was a grace from God which led him to Christ; Christ telling him that his son lived and he believed Him was the next step in this progress. It is proven that his son was healed at the very time that Christ said his son was healed, and this strengthened this faith. And all this is revealed to the ruler's family and lastly the greatest of all graces: "And he himself believed, and his whole household."

This faith is the greatest of the miracles. All the others are of much less value (Even the earthly life of the boy.) But, each of the graces were important because if any one of them were rejected this last and greatest of graces would never have come about. When we consider things in this light we see that there are no small or unimportant graces. We must be faithful in the little things because it is only by such faithfulness or cooperation with the grace of God that we are given greater graces. All too often we wish to skip over the less important graces in search of greater things of which we are unworthy of or we are unable to bear.

We must plan for the future and constantly strive to do better and to love God even more tomorrow, but we must never lose sight of the present moment. Let us examine ourselves as we find ourselves at this very moment. All that we have and all that we are is a gift from God _ even that which seems so painful and sad. God wishes for us to use this moment to draw closer to Him. If we find suffering in our lives let us call upon Him for relief or strength to bear this burden as we ought. If we find pleasure let us turn to God in praise and thanksgiving for all His goodness and never lose sight of the fact that these pleasures are only a foretaste of the good things He has waiting for us in eternity as long as we never turn away from Him.

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