Dear Friends,
One of my addictions is reading. I cannot read one book at a time. I am always reading four or more
at the same time. I blame this on college where we always took at least four courses at once and
all of them had reading to be done. I just got into a pattern of reading several books at the same
time rather than finishing one book and moving on to the next.
A book I have been reading off and on for the past several months is a history of the group of
authors that formed a support group of sorts called the Inklings. Its members were C.S. Lewis, J.R.
Tolkien, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams and others. I have always loved Tolkien’s and Lewis’
writings, so this book gives me an opportunity to learn about them and how they crafted their art.
Reading the book, I learned how much these authors were inspired by George McDonald, a writer of
fairy tales and novels. Which has sent me off on a sidebar of reading the works of McDonald.
Recently, Iran across a speech in one of his novels where a priest, Thomas Wingfold, gives a speech looking back over his years as a minister. He says,
“Whatever energies I may or may not have, I know one thing for certain, that I could not devote
them to anything else I should think entirely worth doing. Indeed nothing else seems interesting
enough – nothing to repay the labor, but the telling of my fellow men about the one man who is the
truth, and to know whom is the life. Even if there be no hereafter, I would live my time believing
in a grand thing that ought to be true if it is not. No facts can take the place of truths, and if
these be not truths, then is the loftiest part of our nature a waste. Let me hold by the better
than the actual, and fall into nothingness off the same precipice with Jesus and John and Paul and
a thousand more, who were lovely in their lives, and with their death make even the nothingness
into which they have passed like a garden of the Lord. I will go further…and say, I would rather
die forever more believing as Jesus believed, than live forever more believing as those who deny
him.”
I thought, wow, this guy thinks like me, but writes much more elegantly. When I have thought that
church or ministry or life have grown frustrating, I have always ended up with the same conclusion
as Thomas Wingfold: there is nothing else I should think entirely worth doing than telling other
people about the one person who is truth. Even if there is no heaven, what he teaches is worth
living and doing. Even if there is no heaven, I would die for this truth.
What frustrates me so often is that people pick and choose what they think Jesus taught. They
choose what they want to believe and then force Jesus to say what they already think. He is quoted
by the right and the left, by oppressors and liberators, by Satan and saints. All the more reason,
that you and I need to go back the gospels and hear the words come from Jesus’ mouth.
This Lenten season, return to Jesus. Take a few extra moments in prayer — in the prayer, open your
bible and read the gospels. Hear the powerful words spoken 2,000 years ago and are today spoke to
you. Let the truth of Jesus ring powerfully in your heart and mind.
Then, if you are brave enough, tell someone else about the truth you have found. A truth where
every human being is loved, where we are set free by Jesus’ life-giving sacrifice, where we are
invited to forgive, pray for our enemies, and do good to those who hurt us. Tell them about a
life-giving truth that has brought you joy and peace. A joy and a peace that can be found nowhere
else. One that has set you free from fear and brought you into the loving arms of God.
Peace,
Fr. Damian