Seeds from shop

A woman dreamt that she had walked into a brand new shop in the marketplace and to her surprise found God behind the counter. "What do you sell here?" she asked. "Everything your heart desires," said God. Hardly daring to believe what she was hearing, the woman asked for the best things a human being could wish for.

"I want peace of mind  and love  and happiness  and wisdow  and freedom from fear," she said.

Then, as an afterthought, she added "Not just for me, for everyone on earth." God smiled. "I think you have got me wrong, my dear" He said. "We don't sell fruits here, only seeds."

Source: Newsletter of the St Joseph's School, July 2003

Let your light shine ...

"This may be a wicked age, but your lives should redeem it."    -  Ephesians 5:16

We note that St. Paul says "This may be a wicked age". He does not pass judgement. He does not say "This is a wicked age". Neither we may say this is a wicked age. We certainly see many evil things but, perhaps, the evil doers are unaware of the evil in their lives and in the world.

St. Paul tells us that our lives should redeem this age. We who know what is evil must try to help the doers of evil to change their ways. We can write letters. We can argue with people. We can support people like ourselves who know what is evil or we can just mutter to ourselves about all the evil and in that way keep ourselves strong against evil.

We pray for ourselves, our families and our friends but how rarely do we pray for the misguided and evil. Often there is a mention in the prayers of the Faithful for people and nations who are astray of God's ways. However it is but a brief prayer - a bit like ships passing in the night.

Yet, being sensible, there is a limit to the time we can give to prayer and the number of evils against which we can pray. Often it is not what we say, do and pray that will change the world. It is the lives we live, the example we set, the goodness that shines from our lives. As Christ said "Let your light shine before people". Through our lives can this world be redeemed. People like St. Therese and St. Maria Goretti were hardly known in their own lifetime yet the church values greatly their influence and their power with God. Had there been 10 just people Sodom and Ghomorra would not have been destroyed. Our influence may seem small but if we are good it is a huge influence. It is like the influence on a team of a good half back.

----- Fr. Frank Bendeich, 17 August 2003

I Asked God

I asked God to grant me patience. God said, "No.
Patience is a by-product of tribulations; it is not granted, it is earned."

I asked God to give me happiness. God said "No.
I give blessings.  Happiness is up to you."

I asked God to spare me pain. God said. "No.
Suffering draws you apart from worldly cares and brings you closer to me."

I asked God to make my spirit grow. God said, "No.
You must grow on your own, but I will prune you to make you fruitful."

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life. God said, "No.
I will give you life so that you may enjoy all things."

I asked God to help me love others, as much as he loves me.
God said ....."Ahhhh, finally you have the idea."

Stop telling God how big your storm is,
Instead tell your storm how big your GOD is.

Source: Parishwide - Rockdale, Volume 230, (submitted by Rosemary)

The Assumption

Many may wonder why God bothered to take Mary's body away after she died.  Without doubt one of the reasons was because she was sinless.  For that reason God did not allow corruption to destroy her body.   However, perhaps it was more God's way of telling us that our bodies are important.  So often in the past Catholics seemed to believe the body did not matter.  As long as we cared for our souls all was well.  God is telling us that the body too is important.  We have a duty to feed ourselves properly, to have enough sleep, to avoid drugs, to keep ourselves clean, to avoid taking risks especially in our cars and on our streets.  The body is sacred and good because it was made by God.  Nothing God makes should be misused.  It means we go to the doctor and the dentist and take our medicines.

The Assumption also stresses the importance of women.  Leaving aside the mysterious Elias there were two bodies which were taken to heaven.  A man, Jesus, and a woman, Mary.  In some ways the assumption of Mary's body is more significant.  Christ was God living in a human body.  Mary was an ordinary human being.

The Assumption shows us also that death is not the end.  There would have been no value in keeping Mary's body if her soul had died.

It is time Mary took a more important part in our lives.  It is hard to love a child and ignore the child's mother.  The same applies with Christ and His mother.  If we fail to honour her we forget the words of Saint Luke's gospel. "From this day forward all generations shall call me blessed" (1:42, 48).

---- Fr Frank Bendeich, 18 August 2002

An 'Unanswered' Prayer

Stories abound of the countless ways in which the Blessed Mother has answered prayers.  Before he died in 1952, Fulton Ourstler, Sr., a writer and historian, recalled the story of a French lawyer whose prayers were answered in a most unusual way.

Decades before, Paul Galland practised law in a Paris suburb.  Then he contacted a crippling disease that hardened every joint in his body.  Galland was unable to continue his law practice and had to take more and more money out of his savings to pay the household bills.  He was desperate to find a way to support his family.

A man of great faith, Galland decided to seek healing at the famous shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes.  He arranged to be taken on a stretcher to the place where Mary appeared to fourteen year old Bernadette Soubirous in 1858. At the famous grotto he prayed for a cure - but always with the Gethsemane stipulation "not my will but yours be done" (Luke 22:42).

Despite the pilgrimage, Galland's prayers seemed not to have been answered.  Many other pilgrims who had come to the shrine and prayed to GOD through Our Lady has been cured of blindness, tuberculosis, cancer, and diseases as debilitating as his.  But Galland was brought home on his stretcher, spiritually inspired but not a bit better than before.

Fulton Oursler recalled looking at this nearly paralyzed man and asking, "So your prayers were useless?"

"You might think so," Galland replied, but then he proceeded to tell the rest of his story.

The rest of the story began when Paul Galland's reflecting on how hopeless his situation seemed.  His wife could not leave the the house to work, and his son was too young to work.  The family had no income, and their savings were almost depleted.  Surely his prayers had fallen on deaf ears.  Then in a moment of insight, as though the mother of Jesus had not forgotten him, he had an idea, Galland described it as a suggestion spoken like a "voice in my soul"; he would write a book that others could read to gain some insight into what it was like to be bedridden.

Galland could not literally write it because his hands were too stiff to hold a pencil.  Instead he dictated to his wife who laboriously wrote out the entire manuscript by hand.  Next came the questions all authors face:  Would anyone be the least interested in reading what he had written?  Would anyone publish it?

Nervously, Galland's wife set out for the first publishing house she found listed in the Paris telephone directory.  The staff read the manuscript - and loved it.  Within weeks the publisher offered Galland an advance of thousands of francs for the book, plus a percentage of sales.  Galland and his family would not only survive;  the income would also fund his son's education.  Our Lady seemed to have answered his prayers, although not in the way he had expected.  Galland had not left Lourdes with a new body - but he had received inspiration for a new idea, an idea that would not only change his fortune and that of his family but would also help others.

The answer to Paul Galland's need did not stop there.  The book proved to be such a source of inspiration to the hundreds who read it that the publisher asked Galland to produce a second one which he did.

Determined to express his gratitude, Galland decided to help children in his community who were having difficulty in school but for whom the teachers had little extra time to give.  He offered to tutor them in his home.  In the beginning only a few of the students who needed help came;  some parents feared exposing their children to Galland's disease.  Physicians in the community, however, assured the wary parents that the disease was not contagious, and to prove their point, these doctors began sending their own children to him for tutoring.  Soon his home was filled with children sent by their grateful parents.

Through Paul Galland, Our Lady of Lourdes graced the world with yet another miracle of her love.  But his was different kind of miracle.  This time it resulted not in a renewed body but in a renewed life.

Source: Liguorian, February 2002, re-printed in the Parishwide - Rockdale, Volume 229 (submitted by Tom)

The farmer in today's gospel was a gambler. He sowed his seed. He hoped it would rain and he hoped his enemy would not sow weeds.  Yet even when the weeds grew he knew he could win because at harvest time he'd be able to separate the crop from the rubbish.  Most things in our lives are a gamble of some sort - marriage, friends, work, home, family - even sport and walking down the road.  Mostly we win.  Sometimes we lose but the risks are justifiable.

I know a great gambler. He knows He cannot win but He still gambles.  He is a very generous, caring, loving Person but in human terms He is a born loser.  GOD himself.  He created human beings.  He created us to know, love and serve Him here on earth.  Yet, knowing all things, He knows it will not work out like that.  He knows we are imperfect but, He accepts that.  He continues to love us.  He continues to gamble on the goodness of His creation.

Some gambles are acceptable.  Some are not.  In the last financial year Australians lost $13.8 billion in gambling.  That is the losses after the winnings.  $8.7 billion was lost in poker machines.  It is nothing short of a scandal.

We all know there is nothing sinful about a little gamble when we can afford it.  However often people gamble beyond what they ought - and they pay their bills late, they fail to eat properly, they neglect their families, they even do dishonest things.  Of course the governments do not care.  $4.4 billion of this money goes to the governments.  The suffering in families, the crimes and even the suicides are just a price Australians pay for the gambling drug.

Some years ago I decided there was only one thing I could do.  It would not solve the problem but it would show my opposition to excessive gambling in our community.  I stopped buying raffle tickets, tickets in the Melbourne Cup sweep.  The only sort of gamble I am now involved in is picking the football winners.  I like to think this is skill not luck - though when I see the results of some games I am not sure the footballers are not betting on the results and selling out to big time gamblers.

When raffle tickets come we can be like a Salvation Army family I knew.  They would return the tickets unsold with a donation.  It proved their genuine belief and still gave the money.  The local Macedonian priest tells his people "Gambling can be a big sin".   I think we Catholics should make a stand with the Rev. Tim Costello and Fred Nile on gambling.  Gambling is a huge social and personal evil in Australian society.

---- Fr Frank Bendeich, 21 July 2002