Who is Picking These Things

“Live in such a way that if someone spoke badly of you, no one would believe it.”

 

For those of you that follow the school twitter account(@SPX7200), the above quote was posted first thing Wednesday morning.  For those that want to know my secret, each week I google “inspirational quotes” and randomly pick five quotes, one per day, for the following week.  I really have no order or rhyme or reason as to why I pick my quotes, other than to say, I find them helpful to our mission or truly inspirational.  The first quote I pick is Mondays, the second one I pick is Tuesdays, see the pattern.

 

I share Wednesday’s quote with you, because I am not sure, but pretty sure(the quandary I am in) this quote picked me and Wednesday.  I say this because I really believe I have no rhyme or reason to the quote I picked, but I am pretty sure God does.  Let me explain.

 

Each day, the Catholic Church picks a saint to honor.  This Wednesday we celebrated the life of St. Matthew, the tax collector.  Fr. Hunter had a beautiful homily explaining how Jesus simply went to Matthew and said “Follow Me,” and without hesitation, Matthew did exactly that.  From that point on, Matthew lived his life, following Jesus, and living in such a way that those that had bad things to say about him, people did not believe it.  Matthew then became a Saint and an example for us all. 

 

Fr. Hunter talked with the children about how we can change our lives, just like Matthew.  He explained how our children could be leaders by forgiving those that make us mad.  He said that IT is never too late to show mercy and to change our lives like St. Matthew changed his.

 

I share both the quote and the summary of Fr. Hunter’s homily, because they are both essentially telling us the same thing.  While I am pretty sure I have not lived my entire life in such a way that no one would speak badly of me, I, like St. Matthew, can change my life and follow Him.  It is never too late to change our ways. 

 

When we change our ways, it changes our heart.  When we forgive someone for wronging us, or offending us, it changes our heart.  When we are forgiven, by others, for wronging them, it changes our hearts.  The more we forgive, the more mercy we show and the more mercy will be given to us.  Pope Frances recently tweeted, “Mercy can truly contribute to the building up of a more humane world.”  Forgiveness is one of the many ways we can show Mercy.

 

As you can see, a randomly selected quote, and the message of the weekly Mass coincided.  What was clearly random for me, certainly was not random for God.