Exactly what are we worth?
Each of us asks the question at least once, probably several times during the different phases of our lives: from the beginning our careers through the process of evaluating job offers once we attain notoriety but later in life, we may think about our worth differently. We may worry about our diminishing worth once we are no longer in the work force; once our incomes are fixed and the bills begin to build.
But I’ll wager that you’ve never looked at the tortured figure on the cross…at his face…looked into his eyes and seen this in that beloved, tortured face: Your life is worth dying for.
The graphic picture stopped me cold when I heard it verbally sketched by an Irish priest on vacation in Half Moon Bay. Imagine that you were standing at the foot of the cross that day…imagine that you had the fortitude to look not only at His face but in His eyes…and you would see, know what this was all about: Your life is worth dying for.
We heard this priest preach for two mornings. His name is Father Mike; an Irish priest with a heavy Irish accent who was on vacation in Half Moon Bay, a missionary in Korea. The new pastor there, Father Shariah had invited the vacationing priest so say Mass. And so he did.
He spoke simply. He spoke powerfully.
As I listened, I imagined what his life would be like as a missionary in Korea but of course, I could not get even close. But on those two days, I listened to what he said. To the power and simplicity of his words. And thought about a couple of phrases that stay with me. This one: Your life is worth dying for.
And another he had preached on the day before. Fr. Mike had been speaking about the Gospel for that Wednesday, July 15th.
It was Matthew’s Gospel and Jesus was praising His Father for ‘hiding these things from the wise and the learned and revealing them to the child like.’
The priest gazed out at us and declared:
” The longest distance in the world is not from the northern most tip of Alaska to the southern most tip of South America. The longest distance in the world is from the mind of a man to his heart.”
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