Fr. Don's Daily Reflection
As a young man in his twenties traveling a lot for an uninspiring job, he had been so discouraged that he thought once of letting his car slip under a semi and ending it all. Thirty years later, happily married with two grown children, he had settled into a tolerable if not exciting job and to that degree was doing well. His health, however, was deteriorating. Then he won the lottery, some millions. Apart from the magnitude of the lottery this life is like many lives, full of change, marked by ups and downs of quite some significance and utter unpredictability. It can be the lottery; it can just as well be leukemia or loss of a job.
After a college friend went in the course of a few days from a healthy young woman with some headaches, it's true, to an operation for the removal of a malignant tumor, friends inevitably remarked how one's life can change so quickly. “What a difference a day makes” went the old song. But this very possibility also gives us reason for hope and for controlling our discouragement and fear. The Christian must trust that the most significant change is going to be in the triumph of God's love whether soon or later. In this world or another. The psalmist, after having his good fortune upset, rejoices in God's saving help: “At night there are tears, but joy comes with dawn” (Ps (29)30:6)