We hear the psalmist call out today: Keep me safe, O God; you are my hope. My friend, Sister Paulinus Oakes, a Sister of
Mercy from Vicksburg who works in Jackson, always says that the only prayer we need to say is: Help me, Lord, help me, Lord, help me,
Lord! And then in response: Thank you,
Lord, thank you, Lord, thank you, Lord! We
ask God’s to keep us safe, and then we thank him for his presence and his
blessings.
When
I was a missionary up in Winnipeg in Canada, I worked in the French section of
town called St Boniface. In fact,
Winnipeg, in the province of Manitoba, has the largest French speaking
population in Canada outside of Quebec. The
cathedral for the French speaking Catholics is called St Boniface. I would pass the ruins of the large cathedral
that was gutted by fire in the 1960s. It
was a large structure that could be seen from the bridge that I crossed each
day into that section of the city. At
the time, I didn’t really know who St Boniface was. St
Boniface, the saint we celebrate today, traveled from his native England in the
8th century to be a missionary of God’s word to the people of
Germany. Boniface succeeded in bringing God’s word to that country when so many before
him had failed. He
spent 36 years as a missionary there and died a martyr’s death, but he is
remembered for the faith that took root there. Boniface is a very popular saint all throughout Europe, with many churches and
schools named after him. This
is a quote attributed to St Boniface that I really like: “In her voyage across
the ocean of this world, the Church is like a great ship being pounded by the
waves of life's different stresses. Our
duty is not to abandon ship but to keep her on her course.” May we pray for the courage, the patience,
and the guidance of the Holy Spirit to continue on our journey of faith, to
grow in that faith that has been passed down to us. May
we ask the Lord to keep us safe on our journey.
May we place our hope in him.
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