What a mother

One of the gifts I received for my recent birthday (feel bad that you forgot now, don’t you?) was a book entitled “Mother Angelica’s Private and Pithy Lessons from the Scriptures.” If you never encountered the nun, Mother Angelica, on the Eternal World Television Network (EWTN) you definitely have a hole in your life. She is one of the most wonderful trips you will ever take for many, many reasons.

My sister gave me the book, and as I was paging through, she had placed a Post It note on page 79 in the middle of Mother’s discourse on the Miracle of the Loaves and the Fishes. Besides being evidence that my sister read the book before wrapping it, the note said, “The final two paragraphs of this lesson made me think of the themes in your own writing.” I was sufficiently intrigued, and read on.

Mother was reflecting on Jesus’ words to His disciples after they fed the 5,000. He said, “Pick up the pieces leftover, so that nothing gets wasted.” She went on (in the last 2 paragraphs) to write:

“There is a lesson in those fragments lying there in the grass. In our lives we take something that God gives us that is good and we turn it into garbage. We fragment it. We pull it apart. We scatter it all over the place. Sin kind of squashes it, or just destroys it, or makes it ugly. God is saying to us, ‘Don’t throw it away. I’m going to make it nourishing for you, even in this state.’

Your life and my life are full of scraps that we would like to hide in the tall grass. But we can’t. Look, I have a tendency to temper, I have a tendency to jealousy, I have a tendency to impatience, I have a tendency to be overly sensitive. Now we think, ‘I know I have these failings, so I’m going to pray and they’re going to go away.’ That’s not necessarily true. We won’t know until we die and face God how even the failures of our life have been used by Him, and transformed by His power for our good…”

Now, when they were drafting people for the nunnery, I was immediately disqualified (and it had nothing to do with flat feet). But, regardless, I want to take ALL that I am (and was) and just offer it up. I will not strive, I will open my life w-i-d-e. His Presence will crowd some things out, but not all things. He uses my scraps to nourish me nonetheless, and in some great way, He nourishes others too. Even in our state.

Preach on, Mother.