Faithfully Present

Borrowing this poweful phrase, "Faithfully Present", from the Pregnancy Care Center's 25th fundraising banquet last night, I'm looking at it as another way of expressing St. Marcellin's foundational belief in the necessity and power of "being present". First of all, God is "faithfully present" to all of us and through the Holy Spirit is building up in us an unshakable faith. We are challenged each new day to see what transpires not as accident or coincience, but evidence of God's plan to help us empty ourselves and be filled with him. The vivacious and humorous keynote speaker at the banquet, Gail McWilliams, made the distinction between "stuck" and "positioned". A world of a difference in outlook, and reality. We may feel "stuck" in a situation, particularly one that is uncomfortable, painful or challenging, and ask, "Why me?"
But if we see ourselves "positioned" in this situation as an opportunity to grow, to learn, to be purified of selfishness, for example, then we welcome our "position" and can be joyful in it. Gail is blind, as a result of her pregnancies, and hit rock bottom as she saw herself "stuck", almost punished, for choosing life over blindness. The desperate prayer from the depths of her heart enabled to see her blindness as an opportunity to "see beyond" her plight and she found new purpose and energy to help others "see".
As Marists, we talk about living in the presence of God. In so doing, we are able to see that we are not randomly "stuck" but strategically "positioned" to use that moment, or that situation for a greater good. We can become "faithfully present to God" as God is to us, and "faithfully present" to those around us who may be blind to the good they can derive from a painful, unwanted situation. It's another case of a curse becoming a blessing. When the blind Bartimeus cried out to Jesus, "Lord, that I may see!" he was answered by the "faithfully present" Jesus and received more than his sight. His vision of life and of who Jesus was changed and left us with a model for our own prayer and outlook. Lord, help me to be faithfully present to you, to myself, and those around me. Amen.
Bro. Rene