Feast of Saint Bridget of Sweden (23 July 2009)

For the past four-and-a-half years, I have had a condition affecting the nerves which control the inner ears. It causes extreme disequilibrium or unsteadiness, increasing deafness, and now it seems to be affecting my vision as well. Needless to say, when something like this occurs, one spends a good deal of time thinking of it and wondering what the future brings. This very day, for example, I have an appointment with a doctor to see if he can shed any more light on my “condition,” as I call it.Then, while thinking of these things as I can’t help doing, I come to the Liturgy of the Hours and in today’s Office of Reading, we have Saint Paul writing to the Corinthians. He says this: “We are afflicted in every way possible, but not crushed; full of doubts, we never despair . . . Continually we carry about in our bodies the dying of Jesus, so that in our bodies the life of Jesus may also be revealed. While we live we are constantly being delivered to death for Jesus’s sake so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our mortal flesh . . . We do not lose heart, because our inner being is renewed each day even though our body is being destroyed at the same time . . . The present burden of our trial is light enough, and earns for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”
These words of Saint Paul, which are likewise the words of Sacred Scripture and therefore of the Holy Spirit, are encouraging. I quote them to you because you might need to hear them, too, and they might well encourage and motivate you, too. Let us remember that illness, and the diminution of health and our physical and mental faculties are a vocation to which we are called. Let us embrace it and live it as wholeheartedly as we can, giving glory to God and using our weakness to add to the strength of the Body of Christ throughout the world. Thank you for seeking God’s truth. God bless you. Father Victor Brown, O.P.