Keep Your Lamps Burning

Luke 12: 35-38

Watchfulness

³⁵ “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, ³⁶ like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. ³⁷ It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. ³⁸ It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak.

Today, we celebrate the martyrdom of the North American Jesuit Martyrs, 6 priests and 2 lay associates, who worked among the Hurons and Mohawks in upstate New York. St. Isaac Jogues was the leader of the group but St. Rene Goupil , a deaf lay brother, was the first to be martyred for making the sign of the cross over a sick boy. These men came from France and certainly kept the  lamp of their faith burning as they tried to evangelize the Native Americans. They learned the languages and dialects of the people, suffered through frigid winters, and hot, muggy, bug-ridden summers, and the physical beatings from the tribal members who blamed them for the epidemics of small pox which decimated family after family. Their determination, their willingness to serve and to sacrifice of their lives eventually resulted in the conversion of many whose descendants are faithful Catholics to this day.  When we think we are having a bad day, may these men inspire us to watch and wait patiently for the Master "to open the door" for us as he did for them.

Bro. Rene