Novena of Grace Day 7

You remember COVID? Remember that thing we did a few years ago? Yeah, kind of hard to forget, kind of hard to forget that one, although it feels like a million years ago, doesn't it, in some ways? I totally lost track of time during that. But what a strange time. Can we just acknowledge that for a moment? That that was like not even once in a generation. This is once in like 10 generations. It was a strange time, those years of COVID. Incredibly challenging time. We had no idea what we were doing, did we? I remember. I remember those first few months of COVID. Every time we'd go to the grocery store and bring home groceries, we were washing the groceries because we weren't sure and we didn't know how this works. We didn't know what to do. We were trying to figure our way through this. And at the same time, we still had to live our lives, and we had to learn to love one another in the midst of all the chaos. COVID was a strange time.

You know, in life, as you know so well, there are sometimes, there are some problems we face that have very clear procedures for solving them. For instance, if a light goes out, the first thing you do, you check the switch. If that's not the problem, then you go and you check the bulb. And if that's not the problem, then you go check the fuse. And if that's not the problem, then you go call the electrician. There's a set procedure for solving some of life's problems. But a lot of the problems that we face in life, like a pandemic, there's no procedure, there's no blueprint, there's no recipe. We find ourselves a bit lost, a bit adrift. We're not sure how to move forward. And yet we have to move forward. And so pandemic shuts down the whole world. Well, how are you going to run a church? You still got to figure that out. Pandemic shuts down the whole world. How are you going to run your school? Pandemic shuts down the whole world. How are you going to run your business? Pandemic shuts down the whole world. How are you going to raise your five kids and make sure that there's food on the table? No easy answers to any of that. And yet, sisters and brothers, take a moment right now and look around you. You're not looking around you. There we, okay, there we go. We're still here. We're still here. We made it through with the grace of God, amen? But we made it through, and we're here.

And I think St. Francis Xavier would be very proud of all of us for coming through this with most of our sanity intact. You know, I think sometimes when Christ calls us, He calls us to serve to love in situations that are so messy and so complicated that we're not sure how to get through them. I think sometimes Christ calls us into these places where there's a lot of confusion, where there are not easy answers. That's how Christ does it. That's how He rolls. Look, okay, look at Abraham for a moment. You remember the story of Abraham. Abraham is walking along and all of a sudden a voice comes down from heaven now he did not know this God that was speaking to him yet and the voice says Abraham get your family get your clan load up the camels and go that way and I'll tell you when to stop and so rather than saying could you could you be more specific could you give me better directions than that Abraham says ‘Yes I'll go’. He trusted. He trusted that voice that called him. He trusted that voice, God who called him, would not lead him astray, and he packs up his family and his clan, and he goes. And eventually, the Lord leads him to a new place. So, it is with us.

So, it is with us. In the Spiritual Exercises, there's a meditation called the Call of the Kingdom, and I'll spare you all the details of the meditation. But there's a section at the end where we imagine Jesus speaking to us directly. And Jesus says, I've got a mission. There's something that I have to go out in the world and do. My mission is the salvation of souls. Will you join me? And then he pauses and he says, But wait, before you say yes, just know what this is going to require from you. You're going to have to be content eating the same things I eat, and you're going to have to be content sleeping where I sleep. You're going to have to be content with all the discomforts that I've gone through, he says. And so, we have to ask ourselves, am I willing to follow Christ all the way? Am I willing to follow Christ even if it hurts? Am I willing to follow Christ into the unknown? Francis Xavier said yes to that call. After he was ordained a priest, he was the secretary of the Society of Jesus.

The society had just started. We just got approval from Pope Paul III. And Ignatius was busy sending Jesuits out to all corners of the earth. And Ignatius had somebody, a Jesuit named Nicholas Bovadia, who was going to be sent to India. But Bovadia got sick. So, Ignatius looks over at Xavier, who must have hated having a desk job. He looks over at Xavier and he says, I think this job is right up your alley. And Xavier says, ‘Yes, it is, let's go!’. And as the legend goes, Ignatius said, ‘Go, set the world on fire’. And Francis Xavier went off. Now here's what... is so amazing to me about Francis Xavier's story. This is the detail that I find so much joy in. I find so much inspiration. Xavier had very little idea where he was going. I mean, yeah, he knew he was going to the Far East, to this land that we now call India, but he knew nothing about it. He didn't know the culture, he didn't know the language, but he got on the boat And he went. Why? Because he trusted the voice that called him. He trusted that God would be there with him. That God would find a way. Xavier didn't have the answers. He did not have a map. There was no recipe. But he knew that God was with him. And he went. And the journey didn't stop there. It didn't stop there at all. That after spending some years in India, he went to the island of Malacca. in Indonesia. And then from there, he went to Japan. And Japan wasn't even on a lot of the European maps. He had no idea; nobody had any idea what Japan was like. But Xavier met a young man who was from Japan, and he asked him a million questions. But he went. And then from Japan, the goal was to go to China.

We'll talk about what happened there tomorrow, but Suffice it to say, Xavier was not intimidated by the fact that he did not have a map, that there were no concrete instructions. Xavier was very much at home in the unknown. He was okay just stepping out and saying yes and going because he knew that God was with him. He knew that the God who called him would not abandon him. And so, it is for us. We find ourselves in these situations so often, and we may not think of them this way, but ponder this for a moment. Those of you who are caring for elderly parents, perhaps, that have dementia or Alzheimer's. I saw both my parents get Alzheimer's, and I know how terrifying that is, because you don't know how that disease is going to go, you don't know what the journey is going to be like. You don't know how many years you have left or what it's going to demand of you, but you say yes and you stay faithful. Or those of you who are caring for loved ones with addictions, the same thing. It's terrifying. There's no blueprint. There's no recipe. You don't have control. The only thing that you got is that love in your heart. That's all. That's it that's guiding you and the trust that you have in God. We find ourselves in these situations quite frequently. Or somebody, a parent, who loses her job or his job and is not sure, How am I going to keep a roof over our head? How am I going to feed my children? There's no blueprint. You're not in control. You've got to trust. And that's so hard. It's so hard for me. I love; I love control. I need predictability. And so, when I hear this story of St. Francis Xavier getting on the boat, just going into the unknown, I find myself feeling absolutely inspired.

Look, let me finish with this thought. What do we need here? What are the graces that we need to pray for to be a little bit more like Francis Xavier? What is it we need to ask God for in order to be able to say yes to loving and serving even in the midst of these difficult situations, these places of the unknown. Well, number one, number one, we need surrender. We need the grace of surrender. We need to understand that we're not in control, that there's actually very little in life that we have direct control over, that we got to trust God. That's the invitation. Gulp, that's a hard one.

Number two, we need to be adaptable. Adaptability means we've got to be ready to let go of some of our ideas and preconceived notions. We need to be open to the possibility that we don't have the answers, and we need to be open to the possibility that we have to change our approach. Xavier did this a lot. He got to India, and he was behaving like he would if he were doing ministry in Europe. And he learned quickly that wasn't going to work. And then he went to Japan, and he was behaving as though he were doing ministry in India. And he found that wasn't going to work. And so, we had to change again. We've got to be willing to change.

Third, we need to be-- I'm going to use an old word here-- docile. And I love the Buddhists call this having a beginner's mind. What that means is that we can be taught something. It means that we understand that we don't understand. And being docile means that we learn to listen to people around us who've maybe done this before. Maybe I can learn something from them. Maybe I don't have to reinvent the wheel. And fourth, I think something that we need is courage. Courage, boldness. Now, courage does not mean that the fear goes away, but courage means that we have the boldness to say yes anyway. Sisters and brothers, our world is becoming more complex, not less complex. To be a Christian in this world, to love our brothers and sisters in this world is getting, feels like it's getting more complicated than ever, and yet this is what we're called to do. Let's pray. Let's ask our brother Saint Francis Xavier to help us with this. Let's learn from his example and let's pray for those same graces that the Lord gave him in abundance for our own lives.

Amen!

NOW LET US PRAY THE NOVENA PRAYER.

O most kind and loving saint, in union with you I adore the Divine Majesty. The remembrance of the favours with which God blessed you during life, and of your glory after death, fills me with joy; and I unite with you in offering to Him my humble tribute of thanksgiving and of praise, I implore of you to secure for me through your powerful intercession the all-important blessing of living and dying in the state of grace. I also beseech you to obtain the favour I ask in this Novena …...here ask for the favour you wish to obtain…. but if what I ask is not for the glory of God or for the good of my soul, obtain for me what is most conducive to both. Amen.

Let us pray…

O God, who was pleased to gather into your Church the peoples of the East by the preaching and miracles of blessed Francis, mercifully grant that we, who honour his glorious merits, may also imitate the example of his virtues, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.