True Power: Weekly Message for 10-13-2020

Dear Fellow Digital Pilgrim, Pax Christi:

I want to share with you one of my favorite prayers. It comes to mind not only because it contrasts so sharply with the strident tone of public discourse as election day draws near, not only because its author – St Teresa of Avila – has her feast day later this week (October 15th), and not only because it has made its way into the Universal Catechism of the Catholic Church (#227).

But I also want to share it with you because it has been such a dependable rudder through many patches of rough water in my own journey. 

Those of you who have been following the development of RCSpirituality over the last eight years have certainly had a chance to get to know our small team of digital apostles.  And if you have watched even half of our more than 50 Retreat Guides, you know well how we constantly strive to keep our fellow digital pilgrims’ focus on what is essential, unchanging, and everlastingly relevant amid the cacophony that swirls around our Christian adventure in this fallen world.  We never tire of reiterating the deeper truths, the truths that Jesus revealed so we could build our lives not on shifting sands, but on solid rock. I think for example of our undyingly popular little booklet, A Guide to Christian Meditation: How to Engage More Deeply in Personal Prayer.

Enormous Consequences

To believe truly in the Gospel has, as the Catechism puts it, “enormous consequences for our life” (#222).  Too often, it seems to me, we fail to enjoy the full impact of those consequences.  Too often the noise of post-Christian culture, the confusion of our own wounded nature, and the subtle interference of the devil and his minions cloud our faith and dampen our hope.

Whenever I catch that happening to me (which isn’t infrequent), St Teresa’s prayer-poem never fails to restore calm and renew my spiritual verve.  I pray that it will do the same for you, whatever the state of your soul may be as the world around us continues its frenzied spin:

Let nothing trouble you,
Let nothing frighten you,
Everything passes,
God never changes.
Patience
Obtains all;
Whoever has God
Wants for nothing:
God alone is enough.

Yours sincerely in Christ,

Fr John Bartunek, LC, SThD