a prayer for the lost that we love, the ones stuck in the trees
And what strikes me this morning is what struck me last night; what I became utterly consumed with the hour before I went to bed and woke up with it still stirring my heart.
And his mother.
Because there is no way I can learn about a miracle story of a person so deep in darkness and sin and their incredible conversion without thinking of the mother who prayed and loved them through it all. You need to carve out the time in your life to learn about this Priest so that you can fully understand that when he approaches his mother after a life steeped in evil and distress, and says, "Take me to a Priest", that when his mother points him in the right direction to the chapel and tells him, "RUN!"....you, too, can feel that rush...that unspeakable longing and need to get to Jesus as fast as you humanly possibly can.
The story of Father Calloway is a living modern day Gospel story.
And his mother, a modern day Saint.
If you are a mother suffering over a child, this will encourage you and bring you great hope.
If you are an extraordinary sinner, certain there is no ocean of mercy big enough to save you, this will open your eyes to the lie you are believing and the truth to be found.
And because there has been so much suffering in my own family lately, I have been blessed and consider every bit of the mess gift; to be invited by God to step into the Gospels with Him, ...with my own two hesitant feet and one broken heart...and come face to face with the very ones that this Jesus came to seek and to save ...to bring home what was lost.
I have been places I never imagined I would need to go.
There is so much I can no longer un-see.
So many new wells of compassion that have been dug, thanks to the pain.
So many new faces to pray for, thanks be to God.
Like Father Calloway's mother who told him to "Run!", and run, he did, Jesus tells the tax collector, Zacchaeus, who was up in a tree, "Come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house." And he came down quickly. And so we need to pay attention to a most important thing here...we must recognize the immediate response. Father Bishop Barron writes, "Notice how Jesus tells Zacchaeus to hurry up. Don't wait, don't hesitate. Seize the moment of conversion when it comes."
Do we, though?
Because I see in myself and in so many around me, how quickly we respond to everything but Jesus.
To a text.
To an email.
But not to Jesus.
And so I wonder about all of us...the broken and wayward, the lost and lonely, the sick and the sinful, the despairing and hopeless...and I wonder if sometimes, up in the tree is as far as we get. I wonder how many of us make the climb, stretch our necks to see, but when we are called...we stay still in our fear. We remain in lockdown. Even though we can see Jesus...even though we can practically reach out and touch Jesus...even though He invites us to come down and to hurry and says He wants to come home with us...I wonder how many of us still stay stuck in the tree.
And I don't know why one is handed the key and the other stays locked up but rest assured it is my earnest and never ending prayer that all of those in chains will one day soon be released and set free.
I have been praying the last few days with this song and might I suggest you do too - for all of us, and all of those we love, and all those sorrowful faces who I can no longer un-see...for the ones who are in hiding, who fear coming down, who are so sure they are not worthy, and been so deceived to believe that for them there is no hope; for the ones we are dying to look in the eye and say, "hurry" and "run" ...to the lost that we love, who stay stuck in the trees.
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