Coming home from Mass this morning, I opened my storm door to see a very large bumble bee - the largest I have even seen - resting at the bottom in the space between my storm door and my main door. He did not move very much at all. Being trapped for so long in this space, he had lost hope of flying freely eventhough he could see the heavens through the large glass storm door. He had lost hope so much that even when I opened the storm door and told him to be free, he still did not move. I was not scared to move him outside with my index finger to coax him to freedom! Once he was outside on the portch and felt the wind in his wings, he began to fly low and slowly. Once in the air and knowing he was completely free, he flew away but still rather slowly. Perhaps he was either hungry or thirsty. It was hard to understand how such a large insect could actually fly. He was like a small 747 taking off. It is a marvel that God designed them to do so much work pollynating flowers and be able to fly about freely. They seem to have intelligence, perception, sense of navigation, memory and both mobility and hovering skills. They are ever busy and do not seem to worry about anything. Their energy in phenominal. They exercise their freedom with great focus of purpose.
In freedom this particular bumble bee, I felt good about it; that I had done my duty for the day. Without me, this large bumble bee would have parished from lack of moisture and food. I saved him. But he taught me a little about hope. For sure he had tried to escape for many hours. Then, loosing energy, he just gave up and rested on the bottom awaiting his end. Giving up hope is the last that can be lost while conscious. He could not believe he was free when I opened the door. He would not go on his own. If you have seen the movie, Shawshank Redemption, Tim Robbins says that there is one thing that the guards "cannot take from us. They cannot touch it." - Morgan Freeman says, "What is that?" And Tim Robbins says, "Hope!" Morgan Freeman says, "Hope is a dangerous thing. It can drive a man insane." That was the response of a prisoner who had been turned down for parole many times in his last 40 years at Shawshank. Like the bumble bee, he lost all hope and even did not want any one to offer hope or even discuss it. Like the bumble bee, he just rested down in the hopelessness of never getting out. Do we ever do that? Do we ever think a situation or confinement or job or relationship is hopeless? IF WE BELIEVE IT IS HOPELESS, THEN IT IS! But Tim Robbins believed in hope, and eventually both men were free and met by the Pacific Ocean, looking at the future with new eyes and a new happiness. The Ocean itself was the vast paradign of Hope and Freedom. Now, Hope had given way and bloomed into Happiness - vast and free. Without hope, both men would still be there in Shawshank. Hope creates the future according to the desires of our hearts.
I believe that God opens the door to all of us to let us be free; but we have lost hope and do not fly into the sky of love and trust in Him. He has to coax us to fly. Some people think freedom means without any constrainst of law, without any constraints of God's law in religion as given to us through Scripture and Jesus' Church. Freedom is not living without constraints. Freedom is the capacity and courage and will to chose to do what is truth right and good. A man and woman in marriage are totally free to love one another and grow in thier faithful love to one another. If they throw off constraints and have a so called open marriage which allows other sexual intimacy with others outside of the marriage, then that is not true freedom because sexual relations with others outside of their holy marriage will destroy their marriage covenant as well as break their covenant with God by breaking His 6th Commanment: "Thou shalt not commit adultery." [The 10 Commandments have to do with relationships: the first 3 commandments directly deal with out relationship with God. The last 7 deal with the rights of people on the earth. But breaking of any of the 10 Commandments makes one guilty of breaking them all because any one breaks our relationship with God.] Thus an open marriage (which is no marriage at all) will not cause them to grow in their love for one another. Well, a lot of people feel they want to life a life freely without God or His Commandments to slow them down. But, this is not freedom, because breaking His 10 Commandments, hurt not only their relationship with God but hurts their true happiness of becoming who they really are - sons and daughters of God. True freedom is to be able to choose to love God and one another in God. Well, what of those who wish to remain single and many partners? This is not freedom either because true love is created between one man and one woman by nature. It is exclusive and holy. It is a mirror of the covernant relationship God has with us. Living outside of marriage in sexual union with one or many breaks the 6th Commandment; and thus results in unhappiness. When Arrol Flynn was about to die, he was given an opportunity to confess to a priest and die with God's blessing. He refused the priest and said to those who asked him to receive the priest, "Give me my wine, women and song!" Those 3things will not give him the happiness of heaven; but the priest could have given him the freedom to choose God in the last moments of his life. They say that "as we live, so we die." There may be much truth in that; but I pray that Arrol Flynn, when he saw Christ face to face, would have said to Jesus: "My Lord and my God!" With that confession of Hope, Faith, and Charity, he would have gone straight into Paradise - just as the good thief, Dismas, did!
So, Hope is a virtue. There are 3 Theological Virtues: Faith, Hope and Charity. The virtue of Hope is the "substance of things hoped for that appear not." The Holy Spirit has said in Holy Scripture: "Eye has not seen; ear has not heart; nor has it ever entered into the heart of man what God has in store for those who love Him." Those words were to impregnate us with Hope and give birth to eternal Love of God in heaven.
Lord, we offer You every trouble we have today -especially those things in our lives that seem so very hopeless. Send Your Holy Spirit into these areas in our lives - especially our relationship with the Father, so that we will have Hope in His forgiveness just as the prodigal son had in coming home. He had hope for the loving embrace of the Father. Please give us that Hope, too, to come home to the Father's arms and to never let despair and desparation come into our hearts. Give Hope to all POW's, all people with cancer, in loveless marriages, in monotonous jobs, in homelessness, in joblessness, in blindness, in deafness, crippleness, in any handicap that makes life harder. Give them all hope that they are participating in the sufferings of Christ for the redemption of the world - that their sufferings are so redemptive for themselves and for the whole world. As Ghandi fasted for peace in the world, let all who suffer fast ease to accomplish peace and love in the World. Just as Mother Teresa fasted from wealth and made herself the poorest of the poor to minister to the poorest of the poor, let all who suffer be caretakers of the world around them. Let their sufferings help the young pregnant mothers who are scared find all the help and love and compassion they need to give birth to their infants and love their infants - love them into life! Father, please reward all these who suffer find consolation and courage to cast their whole cares up the Lord who will sustain them and give them peace. Give to all of us the great virtue of HOPE untill we all see you face to face, forever. In Jesus' Name, Amen."
Love, Pio
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