What's your favorite filling?

Please read this...

One of my new buds in this world also blogs, and she shared a paraphrased recap of a sermon/homily she heard at her mom's church at mass this past Sunday.

It really touched me. I wanted to put an excerpt here, and direct you to the whole thing. It spoke to me, almost like a calling in ways to be there for others. I know and love so many people, all in different walks of life, faith, struggles, strengths, beliefs, and I know God speaks to me through every person who touches my life. This spoke to me.

"He...pointed out that none of us believes it all or believes all of the time. Then he shared a story of a woman who had lost her son in a car crash. In her despair, she turned her back on her faith and questioned how an all-loving God could take her son in such a tragic, horrific way, especially since she had been so faithful. Father said we could react to her fallen faith in three ways. We could say she no longer belongs in church since she'd given up on God - clearly, an un-Christian and harsh way of responding to her sorrow. We could tell her she was facing only a temporary bout of depression and that everything would be fine. But this response was not appropriate either. Everything would not be fine - at least not for a long time. She had lost a child and would never be the same because of this great loss. Lastly, we could reach out to her, minister to her, and give her permission to grieve and to be angry. And in the absence of faith, we could believe for her.

We could believe for her.

It was a simple enough idea, what Father was saying (and he said it far more eloquently than I'm doing here). Yet, I'd never really thought about faith like that - how as a community of believers we could believe when others could not...Like a choir, Father said, together we can create beautiful music even if as individuals, it's impossible to hit every note every time. Thank goodness God did not design us to be soloists. When we get off-key, we have backup singers to keep the song in harmony..."

The big keystone for me? These next quoted thoughts, something I've been pondering since witnessing a very deep discussion on abortion go deep, cutting, cruel, and not what I think Jesus would have modeled or done, and something I'll share at a later entry - but these thoughts are worthy of reflection:

In answering the question on filling the gaps for someone: "How will I reveal His love to her? Not with what may seem like empty platitudes to her. Not with quoting Scripture. Not with heavy-handed lectures on why she should believe. Not with reason. Nor with passion. But with love. Simple acts of love that show her that God's love is not earned by our level of belief. It just is."

PLEASE go read the whole article!! Thank you Kate for sharing this message from last Sunday!

This week - Quietly fill in some gaps...you never know whose foundation you can support!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cool side note - someone mailed Kate this thought I wanted to share here from a movie:

"In response to and to further your observation that we can believe for others, we recently watched the swashbuckler 'The Count of Monte Cristo.' One of the lines in the movie was '...I no longer believe in God,' (due to Edmond Dantes' unjust incarceration), and the response was '...Aah, that doesn't matter, because he believes in you.' I thought that was worth pondering too."

God is SOOOO COOL!!!