Follow the Road

“Do not follow any road but that which Christ trod. This road seems hard but it is safe.” St. Augustine

I do not want to quote such a great saint as St. Augustine, but it suits this topic very well. The road ahead is not always clear. How do we know it is the right road for us. Recently, I had to have some dental work done before a trip. I was very reluctant to go through with it. Eventually, I did. The dentist called me the next day just to see how I was doing. That is service. I knew then that it was the right decision. We all suffer from doubt. It is easy to do this, but it is not from our Lord. Fear, confusion and any other negative thought do not come from God. My friends in the Carmelite monastery remind of this all the time. We need to be aware of what is waiting for us. I have been trying to do some renovations on my home. Sometimes, the crews are not so reliable and they disappear. I was reminded by good friends that I need to be patient and wait. I need to understand when the time is right. It was. I waited and the right prices and workers came. We need to do this in our everyday lives. Every moment must be this – a waiting for when our Lord moves. He moves first.

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” St. Bernard

We all have great intentions to study, work, do great things and this list might continue. However, the only road is God’s road. St. Ennodius of Pavia lived in the sixth century. He was to marry into a wealthy family, but he began to recognize God’s call. It is not clear if he did marry. In any case, he and his betrothed/wife agreed to separate and while she became a nun and he became a deacon and then the Bishop of Pavia, Italy. He was sent to Constantinople to speak to the emperor and he managed to do so with much success. He was a poet and a master at rhetoric. The Church suffered much in this period with the Arian heresy and the conflict with the Churches of the East. He was quite successful. Similarly, Michael Power was the first bishop of Toronto in the 1840s and he was also the first Canadian born bishop. He was tough on his clergy; he went to Europe to recruit young priests for the new world. He brought the Jesuits to minister to the Indigenous people of the area. He was instrumental in building St. Michael's Cathedral in Toronto. While ministering to the sick with typhoid, he caught the disease himself. He died in 1847 and his body is buried in a crypt in the Cathedral.

“And every day, when your heart especially feels the loneliness of life, pray.” St. Padre Pio

Different things have been happening recently. I cannot recount them all. It is interesting that I hear many homilies at mass, but we need to let it sink in. Nothing is easy. The road ahead might challenging, fraught with confusion and it could be full of pitfalls. Do we stop? No. We continue with faith. There is no other off ramp on this road to Christ. I would submit that being a Catholic is full of beauty. There is nowhere else to go. Our starting point is essential. I had read, recently, in the book, The Origin of the Christian Claim, that those who followed Jesus and stayed with Him found clarity. They were not simply looking for a cure. They wanted what Christ offered. Let us continue to follow those who might bring us to something greater. We need to be ready.

“The only way to make rapid progress along the path of divine love is to remain very little and to put all our trust in Almighty God.” St. Therese of Lisieux