“Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Those words of Jesus, in the Gospel, for many people, are precisely that, troubling. When you’re sharing your bad news; when you’re weighed down with fear and anxiety, when the depression is deep; when the evil behavior and attitudes of others are seemingly on the march where the wicked prosper, the greedy succeed, and the arrogant increase their power and influence… In the face of any of these things, when we’re reminded of Jesus’ words – “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” it can be troubling if we sense that those words are being, on some level, dismissive. That we’re being told to pretend things are okay when they’re not. Or if we allow lies born out of guilt and shame to say to ourselves, “Well, my faith must be too weak” because I’m troubled. Or if we turn it on God, it becomes anger and indifference where we tell ourselves, “God must not care about me.”
In America, we are experiencing a war. In the past 4 short months, 13 service men and women have been killed, over 380 wounded in Operation Epic Fury that results in humiliation, resentment, distrust, and a global economic crisis. So let me share this story about love and sacrifice.
Love requires sacrifice is not a message we hear these days. St. Gianna Beretta Molla was an Italian saint who died in 1962 and whose feast day we celebrate on April 28, was a pediatrician, wife, and mother In 1954, she married Pietro Molla and in 1961, they had two daughters and a son, and Gianna was pregnant with her fourth child. During her pregnancy, she developed a fibroma, a benign tumor, on her uterus. Doctors gave her a choice to have an abortion, have a complete hysterectomy, or remove only the fibroma. Gianna, determined to save her unborn baby’s life, chose to remove only the fibroma. Her daughter was born healthy, but Gianna died from septic peritonitis a week later. Saving her daughter’s life, cost her own. She was canonized by Pope St John Paul II in 2004.
As she once said: “Love and sacrifice are closely linked, like the sun and the light. We cannot have love without suffering, and we cannot suffer without love.”
We continue to struggle with troubling things, like war, the threat of violence, assassination, terrorism, sickness, death and fear of being locked up in an ICE detection center.
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who live in fear of being deported, taken from their home and family. May they find strength and courage from the words oif Jesus: “Do not let your hearts be troubled” and know that God indeed listens to your prayers simply have faith in Him.
