MONDAY OF THE FOURTH WEEK OF LENT
Reflecting
on today’s first reading from Isaiah, I couldn’t help but become giddy at the
thought of Paradise. What a place it
must be, filled with “rejoicing and happiness.”
And then the royal official, whose son was healed by Jesus; he must have
royally rejoiced and felt like he was in Paradise once he learned his son was
well! When I was a kid, I used to think
that Heaven might be boring – singing praises to God all day long, seeing the
same old angels all the time and constantly “rejoicing.” However, life has taught me that we in fact
rejoice over God’s goodness much more often than I thought. For example, when I am walking along West
Pine between class on a Friday morning and I see a friendly face nearly every
five feet, I silently rejoice that God has put me here at SLU and blessed me
with great friends. I think we can take
this sort of rejoicing and make it a much more prevalent part of our daily
lives. Most of us are able to eat three
meals a day, take a nice hot shower in the morning, and go to sleep under warm
blankets with our heads on a comfortable pillow. So much to rejoice about!
Join
me during this Lent in taking time each day to rejoice over all of the blessings
God has given each and every one of us.
He has a grand plan for everyone, and every day a little bit more of it
unfolds right before our eyes and we ought not to miss it. Let’s try to enjoy every moment and rejoice
in God, just as the royal official and Isaiah did. Nowadays, I don’t have such a narrow view of
Heaven – I picture all of the favorite days of my life and multiply the
happiness level by a thousand to get a better feel for it (and that’s only the
beginning I’m sure!) But let’s take our
time here on earth, first - for all too soon we may find ourselves up in
Heaven, rejoicing our hearts out.
My name is Jimmy
Canning. I am a junior here at SLU
majoring in civil engineering. Come on
out to Marguerite on Mondays at 9:00 and join Patrick Cousins, me and a crazy
gang of students for “Monday Maniacs” – you’ll be glad you did J
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