Reflections

About 30 years ago, long before I was a priest, I was invited to dinner at a friend’s house. When I arrived I noticed that the father was not home yet and that the mother seemed rather distressed. She had three children under the age of ten and was in the middle of cooking dinner when I arrived. Seeing her anxiety I went to the living room and entertained the children while waiting for her husband to arrive and the dinner bell to ring. While in the living room I could see into the kitchen and I watched as she tried to open a one-gallon carton of milk. Suddenly the carton slipped out of her hands and hit the floor – exploding everywhere! This is exactly what she did not need at that moment in her life. I watched her as she stood there, next to tears; I fully expected to hear the air turn an icy-blue with some very bad words. I watched as she stood there wringing her hands and her face turning red and her lips quivering when suddenly she proclaimed, “Praise God!” Praise God! This wonderful, faithful, God-loving wife and mother took a moment of cursing and damnation and turned it into a moment of praise. Just imagine the depth of faith this faithful woman had; a faith that she spent many years honing and developing to so respond as inspired by Holy Scripture. In 1 Peter 4:11 it says, “That in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.” This is also the motto of the Benedictine monks, “That in all things God may be glorified.”

Fast forward to last May in Yakutat, Alaska. At that time I was in Yakutat with about 25 FOCUS* missionaries, aged 19 – 25. I offered the early morning Mass and preached this same story. Later in the day I drove a bunch of the missionaries out the road to see the Dangerous River. Enroute, I stopped for a moment on the bridge crossing the Situk River and locked my keys in the car. I started working up a slow steam and was getting ready to vocally vent my frustration when one of the young ladies from Dallas, Texas looked at me and yelled, “Praise God! Praise God!” I literally began smiling and began praising God. Within a minute a vehicle came by and gave us a ride back to the church for the extra set of keys and we continued the adventure with no problems whatsoever. Challenge yourself to rethink your secular, worldly reaction to that which happens in your life and learn to glorify the Lord in all things. The effects will be eternal.

Fr. Steve Gallagher

St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church