Good Saturday, everyone! Today is the Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi. Many parishes are having blessings for pets today, so if you want to get your pet blessed, check out your local parish.
Today, I want to focus on a few lines from the first reading in Baruch that spoke to me during my reflection on today’s readings. The first is: “Fear not, my children; call out to God!” This is something that I know I am personally guilty of. We should never fail to call out to God—not just in those moments of sadness or prayer, but also when we face sin in our lives. When we feel that temptation to sin and that slipping away from God, we should not fear to call out to God to save us, to give us the grace to turn away from that moment of temptation and turn to God. It’s all too easy to let the devil get into our ears and remind us of our shame for even being tempted. The devil would do anything to keep us from calling out to God because he knows that if we do not lean on God and his grace, we will fall under our own power. It’s precisely in those moments that we should call out to God without fear! As the Scripture goes on to say, “As your hearts have been disposed to stray from God, turn now ten times the more to seek him.”
Finally, I want to focus on the very last line of the first reading: “For he who has brought disaster upon you will, in saving you, bring you back enduring joy.” Those words—“bring you back enduring joy”—one of my favorite quotes from any saint (one you’ll often see quoted on this website) is from St. Augustine: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” When we return to God, when our relationship is right with God, he gives us a joy and peace that nothing on Earth can give us. When we choose sin, we never choose it because it is not good. We never choose something simply because it is evil. We choose what we perceive to be a good. We choose to get drunk because we think it will relieve our anxiety, or we choose sexual immorality because we think it will bring us pleasure. The same can be said about any sin. We do them because we perceive them to be good, but after we commit the sin, we realize that it could never fill the hole in our hearts. No matter what, it just leaves us wanting more. That is how we sometimes fall into these pits of sin that keep getting deeper and deeper. It’s when we realize that only God can fill that hole in our hearts that we can truly be happy and content in life.