Paul tried to be all things to all men. That would be too much for people like us.

Sunday, 1/8/15

 The Gospel tells the story of Our Lord’s first Saturday evening in Capernaum. With the Sabbath rest concluding at sundown people brought him many who were ill or was possessed by demons. He had a hundred percent efficiency rating.

Paul came close to that in the Second Reading where he said, “I have become all things to all, to save at least some.”

You and I fall so very far short of that. How far short we fall of all that we would want to accomplish. Do you ever find yourself blaming yourself for not doing more?

Shakespeare’s Thirtieth Sonnet expresses that regret. Let me quote it.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:

Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,

For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,

And weep afresh love’s long since cancelled woe,

And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er

The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

All losses are restored and sorrows end.

Shakespeare dedicated those words to a lost friend, but we can use it as a prayer in which thinking on God’s love, we sense his filling us with warmth.