Our Parish is currently having it's Parish Mission this week, and last night was the first night. Father Patrick Foley gave a very moving talk about bondage, freedom and covenants, and in it he referenced the pivotal moment in the Old Testament in regards to bondage and liberation: the Exodus from Egypt. In retelling the story, he mentioned the often quoted message from Moses to Pharaoh: "Let my people go". He then went on to expand that to the full reading of the scriptures as quoted here in two different translations:
Exodus 5:1 Afterwards, Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Let my people go, that they may hold a feast* for me in the wilderness."
Exodus 5:1 After this, Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, 'This is what Yahweh, God of Israel, says, "Let my people go, so that they can hold a feast in my honour in the desert."
What struck me with this and thus stuck into my head and was cause for my meditation for the past day is the ending of that passage...one translation has it wilderness while another has it desert. For those who have paid attention to your Sunday homilies or who have participated in scriptural study, you will be familiar with the word wilderness or desert in this context. It's not meant to be take as literally the desert or out in the back woods, but rather it is taken to mean in difficult times or times of hardship.
What Moses was really saying is that God's people, which now includes you and I, were to hold a feast (again, another word used not literally usually...it means celebrate or worship. This of the Mass as a feast of the Lord's supper) in trying times. The message was one not just of requesting that Moses and his kin were to be allowed to leave Egypt and enter the desert, that is to say a release from physical bondage...but rather it was also a plea to the people to be freed from their spiritual bondage and to rejoice during suffering.
Why would anyone want to rejoice while suffering? The only answer that makes sense to me is that they are to rejoice because even in the most difficult, dark times...you are not only not alone, but you are loved. The unending, unrestrained, unconditional love of God is with you no matter what, and you should have joy in that!
How does this relate to my current situation on the path towards the Kingdom?
How does this NOT relate to my situation? Currently, Brandy and I are struggling with financal issues, and I myself am experiencing a period of what saints have refered to as "Spiritual Dryness". Like the physical sands of the desert, spiritually I have struggled to find God in my daily life, yet I know that he is present all around me.
It's as if the words were spoken about my, to my addictions and fears...let go of my heart, so I can fill it with love in the knowledge that I am wonderfully made and am loved as only He can love. My lack of seeing God means not that he is not present, but that I an blinded by fear, self doubt, and my looking in all the wrong places in all the wrong ways for what is right next to me!
How does this call me to better myself?
I am called to continue to seek God in all his ways, to find Jesus in every person I meet, and to reflect and remember that my life matters. I have to tell myself until I believe it:
I am loved.
That continues to be the most difficult struggle in my life. Your prayers would be greatly appreciated.
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