Dismayed

Being dismayed is to lose courage, usually through alarm or fear by the task before us.  God gives us many tasks to undertake, but they are never more than we can manage.  One famous example is when Peter was fleeing after the crucifixion out of Rome on the Appian Way.  Outside the city Peter met the risen Christ and Peter asked him where he was going.  "I am going to Rome to be crucified again". Peter then gained the courage to continue his ministry by being filled with the Holy Spirit and return to the city.  There he was martyred by being crucified upside down.  Peter requested that his cross be upside down, as he felt unworthy of being crucified in the same manner as Jesus. This is perhaps a rather extreme example, as we are not usually asked by God to serve His will in this extreme and dramatic way.  Those who are called to His service however know fully well what they are been asked to do and are given the courage and strength to do it.  In our example here Peter is fleeing the Roman soldiers, who were killing anybody that they could find associated with the Christ.  Remember that Peter had already denied that he knew Jesus three times before the cock crowed as Jesus had predicted.  This time Peter kept his courage and returned to Rome to preach the good news that he had met the risen Christ.

 Teresa took her solemn vows on 14 May 1937 while she was a teacher at the Loreto convent school in Entally, eastern Calcutta. She served there for nearly twenty years and was appointed its headmistress in 1944. Although Teresa enjoyed teaching at the school, she was increasingly disturbed by the poverty surrounding her in Calcutta. The Bengal famine of 1943 brought misery and death to the city, and the August 1946 Direct Action Day began a period of Muslim-Hindu violence. During a visit to Darjeeling by train, she heard the call of her inner conscience. She felt that she should serve the poor by staying with them. She asked for and received permission to leave the school. In 1950 she founded ‘Missionaries of Charity'. She went out to serve humanity with two saris with a blue border.  Teresa wrote in her diary that her first year was fraught with difficulty. With no income, she begged for food and supplies and experienced doubt, loneliness and the temptation to return to the comfort of convent life during these early months: By 1997, the 13-member Calcutta congregation had grown to more than 4,000 sisters who managed orphanages, AIDS hospices and charity centers worldwide, caring for refugees, the blind, disabled, aged, alcoholics, the poor and homeless and victims of floods, epidemics and famine. By 2007, the Missionaries of Charity numbered about 450 brothers and 5,000 sisters worldwide, operating 600 missions, schools and shelters in 120 countries.

 St Francis of Assisi was brought up in a wealthy family home and he enjoyed a high-spirited life of luxury.  He joined the military and was captured spending a year in captivity.  An illness caused him to re-evaluate his life, but upon his return to Assisi in 1203, Francis returned to his carefree life. In 1205, Francis left for Apulia to enlist in the army of Walter III, Count of Brienne. A strange vision made him return to Assisi and lose interest in the worldly life.  spending a year as a captive. An illness caused him to re-evaluate his life. On a pilgrimage to Rome, he joined the poor in begging at St. Peter's Basilica.  He spent some time in lonely places, asking God for spiritual enlightenment. He said he had a mystical vision of Jesus Christ in the forsaken country chapel of San Damiano, just outside Assisi, in which the Icon of Christ Crucified said to him, "Francis, Francis, go and repair My house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins." He took this to mean the ruined chapel in which he was presently praying, and so he sold some cloth from his father's store to assist the local priest who was responsible for the upkeep of the church.

   When the priest refused to accept the ill-gotten gains, an indignant Francis threw the coins on the floor. For the next couple of months, Francis wandered as a beggar in the hills behind Assisi. He spent some time at a neighboring monastery working as a scullion.  He then went to Gubbio, where a friend gave him, alms, a cloak, girdle, and a staff of a pilgrim. Returning to Assisi, he traversed the city begging stones for the restoration of St. Damiano's. These he carried to the old chapel, set them in place himself, and so at length rebuilt it. Over the course of two years, he embraced the life of a penitent, during which he restored several ruined chapels in the countryside around Assisi.  If we look for them there are many examples of souls who listened to the words that are spoken to them and act upon them.  We are all asked many times in our lives to put ourselves out, so that God’s will can be fulfilled, if we have the courage to do it and don’t become dismayed at the prospect.

 Tuesday, 25^th May 2021