Do you believe in God and scriptural sings? Do you believe God gifts messages and affirmations in design and orders laid before us for discernment?
I do.
There is a land auction today. It touches ground I own (or, more accurate, am making payments for).
I am going. I intend to bid. It is not great ground, but I am a small operator with little immediate opportunity for expansion. The piece is small and isolated enough that—in non-competition with those who don’t regard it worth their time—maybe I have a chance.
I enter with the perspective: it is a blessing if I get it (expansion and growth). I enter with the perspective: it is a blessing if I don’t (no debt).
From this beginning point, I thank God.
I woke this morning beginning as I try to do each day, with readings of the mass from the Daily Catholic Missal. After reading the daily mass, I searched on into the special section for feast days and honorings of saints.
December 11th is the Feast Day of Saint Damascus. As with every daily mass, each mass in tribute to a saint has set readings for its observance and celebration. To save space and not repeat itself in print, where readings already exist printed within the missal, for saints’ feasts, page and reference number are given for the celebrant to look up and find the readings.
I follow the numbers for the first reading, psalm, and gospel.
The gospel comes from John (John 15: 9-17) and appears in the feast day for another Saint.
I read the gospel and keep attention to the last:
“It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name He may give you. This I command you: love one another.”
It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bare fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name He may gave you. Was the message for me? Maybe I have a chance.
For what should I ask? For what should I pray? Is it for self, others, or to pray God’s will and His alone?
Contemplating, eyes wander and look to page beside. It is the Feast Day that follows that catches my eye: The Feast of Saint Isidore, patron saint of farmers, my chosen confirmation name taken as a joke believing no other person would but, now, holds new and deeper meaning.
I became a farmer. God knew before me. Maybe I have a chance.
I read the brief biography of his life:
Saint Isidore (1070-1130) was a Spanish laborer who worked near Madrid as a ploughsman for a nobleman. Despite his long workday, he never failed to attend daily Mass and to spend time praying before the Blessed Sacrament. He married a maidservant, St. Maria de la Cabeza. Always willing to help their neighbors, they worked with the poor in the slums.
I am a ploughsman. I am a planter—a farmhand, maybe all I’ll ever be—but if God can use another like me for such, perhaps he too will choose and use me.
This is what I ask. This is what I pray: Thy will, not mine.
Lord Jesus Christ, show me where it is in your vineyard that you wish for me to serve.
By the intercession of Saint Isidore, may I serve as instrument for Your will; and may I receive and, with gratitude, be fruitful with the blessings meant for me.
Amen.