Searching for Mr. Right?

Dear Friends,

Well this weekend's homily has caused a bit of a chat on campus! For the most part, I am taking calls and reading emails from some of our men on campus who are either giving me permission to give their name to the woman who was one of the primary characters in my homily, or they are asking me to cough up her name! Looking for a conservative, Roman Catholic, Republican age 20-24? Well, my lips are sealed! (It seems as though St. Valentine's day is quickly approaching, doesn't it?)

As the correspondence continued today, I received a very kind and thoughtful email from one of our parishioners who stumbled upon some poetry and thought that our college students who are in a search for Mr. or Mrs. Right might benefit from the wisdom embedded within the poem. So for those who are single as well as for those who are committed, this seems to give us all a bit of a pause and a good piece of mind. Advent continues in our day:

WAIT


Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried:
Quietly, patiently, lovingly, God replied.
I plead and I wept for a clue to my fate…
And the Master so gently said, “Wait.”

“Wait? You say wait?” my indignant reply.
“Lord, I need answers, I need to know why!”
Is your hand shortened? Or have you not heard?
By faith I have asked, and I’m claiming your Word.

My future and all to which I relate
Hangs in the balance, and you tell me to Wait?”
I’m needing a ‘yes,’ a go-ahead sign.
Or even a ‘no,’ to which I’ll resign.

You promised, dear Lord, that if we believe,
We need but to ask, and we shall receive.
Lord, I’ve been asking, and this is my cry:
I’m weary of asking! I need a reply.

Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate,
As my Master replied again, “Wait.”
So I slumped in my chair, defeated and taut,
And grumbled to God, “So, I’m waiting…for what?”

He seemed then to kneel, and His eyes met with mine…
And He tenderly said, “I could give you a sign.
I could shake the heavens and darken the sun.
I could raise the dead and cause mountains to run.

I could give all you seek and pleased you would be.
You’d have what you want, but you wouldn’t know Me.
You’d not know the depth of My love for each saint.
You’d not know the power that I give to the faint.

You’d not learn to see through clouds of despair:
You’d not learn to trust just by knowing I’m there.
You’d not know the joy of resting in Me
When darkness and silence are all you can see.

You’d never experience the fullness of love
When the peace of My spirit descends like a dove.
You would know that I give, and I save, for a start,
But you’d not know the depth of the beat of My heart.

The glow of My comfort late into the night,
The faith that I give when you walk without sight.
The depth that’s beyond getting just what you ask
From an infinite God who makes what you have last.

You’d never know should your pain quickly flee,
What it means that My grace is sufficient for thee.
Yes, your dearest dreams overnight would come true,
But, oh, the loss, if you missed what I’m doing in you.

So, be silent, my child, and in time you will see
That the greatest of gifts is to truly know Me.
And though oft My answers seem terribly late,
My most precious answer of all is still…
“Wait.”



By Russell Kelfer

For those who are in waiting and for those who have found what they're looking for, we stand together knowing that "God's flock is in your midst; give it a shepherd's care!"

Yours in Ss. Norbert & Joseph,

Father James Baraniak, O. Praem.