Thorns Have Roses

Dear Friend,

Peace and all good be yours!

“Thorns have roses” as the old saying goes. Life has thorns and growth entails pain. Paul saw it in the community he was trying to build in Corinth. “It has been reported to me that there are rivalries among you,” he writes. Growing as a community - and as a church - is not easy; the forces against us are great. I certainly feel that as a pastor. The rivalries, the hurts, the “egos” - our own and others - get the most of us. Things do get prickly and thorny. To really mix the metaphors, cracks begin to appear in the facade…

Five years ago, facing painful divisions and communal hurt, the pastoral council and I were attempting to build a new way forward for the parish. A council member presented us with the following reflection:

"We search for the ultimate church that meets all our preferences in worship, Word, and companionship, and, lo and behold, sometimes we think we've discovered it. Then, just about the time we settle in, disappointment inevitably comes in one area or another and dashes our high hopes into the nearest ditch. We then have a choice: forsake that assembly in search of another, or stick around to see what kind of mosaic Jesus could build with a cooperative bunch of misfit pieces."

Five years on, the truth of these words still blazes as challenge and invitation. Similarly, so do the words of this Sunday’s Gospel. Jesus calls his first disciples (misfit pieces?); they leave their boats. Note, though, that Matthew precedes that dramatic account by encapsulating Jesus’s preaching with these words: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He may as well have been saying: “Thorns ahead! Roses too!”

Gratefully,

Fr. Dan ofm, Pastor