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Gospel: Luke 17: 20-25
Asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come,
Jesus said in reply,
“The coming of the Kingdom of God cannot be observed,
and no one will announce, ‘Look, here it is,’ or, ‘There it is.’
For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.”
Then he said to his disciples,
“The days will come when you will long to see
one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it.
There will be those who will say to you,
‘Look, there he is,’ or ‘Look, here he is.’
Do not go off, do not run in pursuit.
For just as lightning flashes
and lights up the sky from one side to the other,
so will the Son of Man be in his day.
But first he must suffer greatly and be rejected by this generation.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
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When she was just a child, Saint Frances Cabrini often visited her uncle, who was a priest. Behind his home, there was a canal where she’d make paper boats, place flower petals in them, which she called “missionaries,” and send them downstream.
As the boats disappeared, Frances imagined they reached the shores of China and India, where she dreamt of being a missionary someday.
On one occasion, Frances leaned too far forward and fell into the canal nearly drowning. She was found on a riverbank downstream and attributed her survival to divine intervention.
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Although she survived, this near-death experience left Frances with an intense fear of water. Still, that was not enough to dampen her dream of becoming a missionary.
As Providence would have it, Frances did realize her dream, but not where she had imagined as a child. After meeting with the pope, she was told the real need was to minister to Italian immigrants in America.
Obedient, she went.
But imagine the fear she must’ve felt when she first saw the Atlantic Ocean. It was a million times larger than the canal she fell into as a child! Incredibly, she made the perilous journey across the Atlantic not once…but twenty-three times.
And often enough, in frail health with nausea and shivers.
She later said, “I do not ask God to take my fear away. Rather, to expand my heart. If I love more than I fear, then I shall overcome.”
Overcome she did. Frances lived with the poor of the earth, serving often abandoned children, turning them from orphans into beloved children of God.
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She reminds us that, no matter how great or deep our fear may be, there is One who walks on water. “Do not be afraid,” Jesus says, “I have overcome the world.”
And with him, so shall we.
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Image credits: (1) Wildwood Lifestyle Center (2) Stewardship and Development, Archdiocese of Chicago (3) Walking on Water, Joseph Brickey