Seeing

Two carp in Bitter Lake

Reflecting on victims, I see St. Padre Pio, St. Therese of Lisieux and Jesus and His Mother. All the great moments in history reveal that the victims of God wrought miracles for the human race, that it didn't even realize.

Jesus does wish us to recognize His victimhood, and that of every saint who became saints precisely because they were willing to endure victimhood.

For this reason we ought to be glad when we are suffering; it means some soul in the midst of the unbearable was lifted up to be commingled with His grace and mercy to achieve union and salvation.

It is a high calling, to be asked to be a victim, and to accept whatever the Lord desires. Some saints experienced a victimhood that culminated in a miserable death, but it was suffused with the comfort and pleasure of oneness with God.

We see the world stage set for one more feast of victimhood, as the leaders of the world struggle to overcome their rage at the destruction others cause for no good reason. And we know from Jesus that we have been given a mitigation of what is coming, so that we are accountable for the lives surrendered to Jesus in their many agonies.

The last time around was called world war II, but it never really settled down to the peace that had been promised - because people took it for granted, that with the killing ended, they could rebuild the world and settle down to a comfortable life. Yet, the world is built on the sufferings of innocents; the sorrows that fell on earth were like a charring fire, to cleanse a selfishness that corrupted everything, almost down to the letter.

It is time to think about Jesus on the cross, and His children who followed Him. That is required, now. If we are not transported into the seventh heaven, we can only blame ourselves, for being too eager to create our own comfortable universe. And we see, with the astouding tools we have created, that universe is unimaginably vast and violent. We have experienced nothing in its immensity. And yet God is the one immensity that surpassed everything, and it is right that we all see His glory, and we shall see it, with eyes that behold the devastation of the world that at least gives us the chance to see what we had no idea could be be seen. Those who followed Him to the cross and died upon it saw it all, and we have yet to imagine that it is even possible to desire the full revelation that has been confected by the Lord's own hands.

How bright the light of God! Awaken and see the glory of the Lord.