All those inconveniences are things that are actually the things that will save me!
Sometimes it is very difficult to be a Catholic.
After all, we do not just blend in with the crowd – or at least we should not blend in when we are choosing to live our faith. After all, our way should be God’s Way and God’s Way is NOT the way of the world…
I recently read a reflection on Noah’s Ark. And it has stayed in my mind ever since.
When God decided that He would flood the world to eliminate sinfulness on it as punishment for sin, He asked Noah to construct an Ark upon which Noah and his family (eight human souls) and take animals in pairs in the ark.
“So God said to Noah, ‘I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.’ Noah did everything just as God commanded him.” (Genesis 6:13-22).
And I am imagining the scene. I am imagining the neighbours who ridiculed Noah for that ark. I am imagining the family conversations with the family who supported him, trusting him even when they suspected that perhaps he had lost his mind. And then – when the rains came – I am imagining the ark itself – the storms and the sea-sickness. I am imagining the family stuck in close quarters and having no idea at all when they would be able to get off the ark. I am imagining their sadness at seeing all their friends and neighbours and relatives washed away by the floods. And I am imagining the smell – the terrible terrible smell of all those animals in close quarters for weeks and weeks and weeks.
And the whole thing strikes me as terribly terribly inconvenient. And yet – having thought about it – it seems to me that the inconvenience of that time for Noah and his family was – quite literally – the same thing that actually saved him. And it seems to me today that for me as a Catholic – it is really quite the same… All those inconveniences are things that are actually the things that will save me!
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.