A
few weeks ago, my spiritual director had a major stroke.
He's
also a dear friend of many of us here at St Joseph's.
Fr
Joe McCloskey of the Gonzaga Jesuit Community.
I
visited him at the hospital but he was always sleeping.
Awake
and semi-conscious for only a couple minutes each day.
His
family has been saying that Fr Joe is now fully in God's hands.
And
they are prepared for whatever might happen.
He's
now been moved to a Jesuit care facility in Philadelphia.
On
my last visit here in DC he was sleeping as usual, but his sister was
there.
She
told me she found comfort in a quote someone had just given her.
A
quote from Fr Pedro Arrupe, the former Superior General of the Jesuit
Order.
(Fr
Joe knew Fr Arrupe and had told me about conversations they'd had.)
Like
Fr Joe now, Fr Arrupe in 1983 suffered a severe stroke.
He
lost his ability to walk and to speak.
So
he resigned from his office as Superior General.
The
Jesuits met in Rome to elect a successor, and they wheeled Fr Arrupe
into the room.
He
couldn't speak to them, but he had written a message, and an aide
read it to them:
More than ever I find
myself in the hands of God.
That is what I have
wanted all my life from my youth.
But
now there is a difference; the initiative is entirely with God.
It
is indeed a profound spiritual experience
to
know and feel myself so totally in God's hands.
Fr
Joe's sister was reassured by Fr Arrupe's expansion on that familiar
phrase.
The
one her family had already adopted—in God's hands.
She
found comfort in knowing that, spiritually, Fr Joe was at peace.
Enjoying
that very same profound spiritual experience that Fr Arrupe had
expressed.
With
our Psalm today we repeated those words King David used when he was
in distress:
Into
your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.
Words
echoed by Jesus himself as he hung on the cross.
Father
into your hands I commend my spirit.
And
echoed again by our first Christian martyr, the good deacon, St
Stephen.
Lord
Jesus, receive my spirit.
But
putting ourselves into God's hands isn't an act to save for desperate
or final moments.
It's
not even so much an act of doing as an act of acknowledgment.
Fr
Arrupe and Fr Joe made that acknowledgment as young men.
But
they didn't experience that full appreciation until many years later.
In
today's Gospel, Jesus invites us—gently prods us—to action.
Come
to me now.
You are already in my
hands.
Don't be only
semi-conscious of that truth.
Acknowledge it fully;
experience the profound comfort—now.
Whoever
comes to me will never hunger.
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