Published: August 07, 2008 11:33 am            

Our daily bread will come

From my window

“Brothers and sisters: What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” — Romans 8:35, 37-39

Wow, what an amazing part of Paul’s epistle was read at last Saturday night’s mass!

I’d heard it, and read it, so many times; but for some reason it never really clicked in.

Then it was read again and my heart jumped. God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit dwell, even now, in those who believe and — I believe — those who do not believe.

And the promise Paul made to the church in Rome lives in the hearts of all. How in 59 years had I missed the simple concept that Paul reports?

As humans, we are so afraid of things that we perceive to be dangerous to us and we don’t sometimes see or feel the love of our creator who lives in us. Most of us fear death. But if we believe what we have been taught only in Sunday school, not even in Sunday worship, we know there is some kind of eternal life. We will live on, perhaps not in this world, but in a much better world.

And how many of us are simply afraid of life? We are afraid that we’ll not be popular, that we will not live up to the standards to which others hold us, that people of other races or nationalities will conquer us. Some of us are simply afraid to awake each morning. Others, and perhaps most of us, are afraid of what the future holds.

From babies to centenarians there is a fear of what may be in our future. Will we be successes or failures? Will we make good, lasting friends? Are we afraid of the changes the future could bring? Are we afraid of loss of power, loss of dignity, loss of stature in the community?

“No, we are not, and should not fear,” said Saul, the patented non-believer, the abuser of Christians, the man who helped kill them, who had been blinded on the road and was taken over by the Holy Spirit, became a believer and changed his name to Paul.

As Paul, he tells the members of the church in Rome, don’t be afraid. Don’t worry. Care for yourselves and your families, be brave in the face of persecution, because even if you are killed in a horrendous way by some power that you perceive to be over you, against you and is a non-believer, you will be welcomed to your eternal life and find the deep, overwhelming, all-abiding, welcomed and warm love of Jesus, His Father and the Holy Spirit.

That passage, those four verses, teach us that we are constantly in the warm loving arms of all those in heaven. Even now, as we read this, or as we drive down the highway, sit at the table with family and friends, even when we doubt the existence of heaven and God, those verses assure us that we will never be ignored or abandoned by that heavenly love. And that love can convert us, who think we can’t; to those who know we can do anything to improve this world for the people who live in Earth and will live in Heaven.

We should be happy even when the worst events in our lives happen. Be glad that there is a way out of the dungeonesque, disastrous, dingy, dangerous and dubious lives we live. Trust is all we need, a trust in ourselves and a knowledge that we are important, dignified and necessary.

Because of Paul and others, we know that our daily bread will come and our sins will be forgiven and someday in the arms of God, we will dwell even deeper than we dwell today.

© V.H. & C.K. Greene

        

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