What a Life! for May 16-20, 2007

Judy Ledet
May 14, 2007
Jill Lyons
May 16, 2007
Judy Ledet
May 14, 2007
Jill Lyons
May 16, 2007

One of the most exciting aspects of Christianity is how failure always leads to the greatest success. The last shall be first, the meek will inherit the earth, the cross leads to Resurrection and new life, and the rejection of the gospel by the Jews opens the doors to the Gentile mission in Asia Minor. This lose-win situation is repeated so often in scripture it is almost like our theme song for Christian living. As Saint Paul put it, “When I am weak, then I am strong.”

Let’s face it, most of us do not like to deal with failures. Maybe we fear the disappointment of parents or teachers who urge us constantly to succeed. It could be peer pressure, keeping up with the Joneses, or the admiration in the eyes of our children that makes us determined to win, or at least to hide our losses along the way.


However, the truth is we do fail often. Marriages fail despite good intentions. Well-meaning parents do wrong by their children regularly. People lose jobs, forfeit friendships, make bad financial decisions, or buy the wrong car or house. Some of us set out to move hearts with passionate homilies and end up boring the assembly.


However, we do not have to be afraid of failure. Christianity is our insurance policy against despair when it comes to human error. We believe in the God who brings new life to those who have died, who promises a new creation out of the rubble of the old one.

So we mess up sometimes! Sometimes our errors break many hearts besides our own. The grief and shame of these losses are real, but so are the promises that God does tremendously good work with the broken pieces of human history. We may lose, but all is not lost.


We have seen what God can do with human losses. We must not be afraid to hold up our attempts and failures to build a peaceful world, a just society, a holy church, for we trust that God will consecrate our efforts with divine wisdom.

A community of hope will do this. A community surrendered to self-righteousness, cynicism, or despair will not. You and I might find it hard to detect a reason to hope, but we follow Christ, the Good Shepherd, who has pledged not to let his sheep out of his hand. If we hear his voice, we cannot be lost, no matter how dark the world situation may seem.

At weekday Masses, I hear the people in the pews raise their voices in the General Intercessions Prayers for the world’s failures. First and foremost are the failures of the body that define our mortality: the cancers and heart attacks, the accidents and miscarriages, the addictions and depression.

Next, people pray about the failure of relationships: the marriages that are falling apart, the children and grandchildren who seem lost to the church community and even to their own families. Prayers about the failures of government and the economy, social policy, and worldly institutions come next.

It might sound like a litany of despair to anyone who does not understand what prayer is, but in fact it is the ultimate act of faith and hope. Faithful people lift up this failed world in confidence that Christ has each broken bit of human history in hand. Even now he is gathering up the fragments so that nothing may be wasted.

If we follow the lead of the Good Shepherd now by caring for those who hunger and thirst for nourishment, knowledge, healing, and justice, when we stand before God on the day of judgment, we will never experience hunger or thirst again.