Coming to Believe

Dear Friend,

Coming to believe takes time. John’s Gospel was written for us, who across two thousand years cannot see Jesus in flesh and blood. God’s work does take time. I’ll admit that even now, as I write this, I am coming to believe.

“I will open your graves and have you rise from them,” says God to the prophet Ezekial, who was writing at a time when the Israelites had been completely uprooted. Thrown into captivity in a foreign land, far from home, their return would take time. The prophet’s vision sustained them across these painful days. They wept as their children suffered. They waited and they surely remembered – maybe with tears – the long trek across the desert their ancestors had made. Under Moses God was bringing the ancestors to freedom. The long journey home took so much time. “Are we there yet?

Our brothers and sisters who will be baptized, confirmed and receive first communion on the night of April 4th at the Easter Vigil, have been preparing to come home. Through water, oil, bread and wine they will rise and step forward at the word of Jesus Christ, made present as time meets eternity in sacrament. They will show us it is possible today to open ourselves and at the same time be opened by God’s mighty word and Spirit, made present in history through Jesus Christ. The world will change because we are changed.

Change and believing take time. God’s work in us, in and through Jesus, takes time. In the desert and exile of our own day, in this time of strife, division and struggle, Jesus weeps. We see him look up and move toward us to assure us. We trust his word to bring us to life, day by day.

 Gratefully,

Father Dan ofm, Pastor