- Feb 20, 2007
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Years ago when I had more spare time on my hands, I volunteered with my parish's St. Vincent de Paul conference. We would take calls and make visits to people with in our parish boundaries and help them with food, bills, rent, etc. When I first started I thought I was a real Mary type, I thought I was pretty good at sitting and listening at the feet of Jesus. As it turns out I was a genuine Martha, fussing about why do we have to go visit this person again, and what not.
As the Gospel of Luke tells us, we went out in pairs, and I was paired up with a retired school nurse. I forget exactly when it was, but one day we had the simultaneous epiphany that we could either adopt a spirit of condemnation or we could adopt a spirit of mercy. From then one out, we vowed to adopt a spirit of mercy. That day we just didn't become liberal, we became radically liberal.
We ran into all sorts of problems with the conservatives in the group and my friend still has problems with them. In a way, this is to be expected as the Society of StVdeP was establish firstly to work towards the holiness of it's members and secondly establish a fellowship between it's members and finally, if we manage to help someone out, that's a good thing too. So, we were all working this out together.
At any rate, it seems to me once you embark on the Christian journey you have a choice on which spirit you want to embrace. I still fight the spirit of condemnation but I know that the spirit of mercy is the better choice.
As the Gospel of Luke tells us, we went out in pairs, and I was paired up with a retired school nurse. I forget exactly when it was, but one day we had the simultaneous epiphany that we could either adopt a spirit of condemnation or we could adopt a spirit of mercy. From then one out, we vowed to adopt a spirit of mercy. That day we just didn't become liberal, we became radically liberal.
We ran into all sorts of problems with the conservatives in the group and my friend still has problems with them. In a way, this is to be expected as the Society of StVdeP was establish firstly to work towards the holiness of it's members and secondly establish a fellowship between it's members and finally, if we manage to help someone out, that's a good thing too. So, we were all working this out together.
At any rate, it seems to me once you embark on the Christian journey you have a choice on which spirit you want to embrace. I still fight the spirit of condemnation but I know that the spirit of mercy is the better choice.