Last year I had a series of situations where, frankly, it just kind of felt like I was striking out. Leaving it all out there, but walking away with nothing but frustration and pain. One day I was driving home, wrestling with all of this, and I suddenly felt as if my mother was smiling down on me from heaven. My mother was known at her parish and by her family and friends as someone who was just incredibly thoughtful and kind, always going out of her way to make someone feel better. She passed away suddenly five years ago, but I felt her presence there as I drove home, as I felt broken and frustrated.
I felt like she was so, so proud of me.
Through it all I had been honest, wholehearted, and kind. I wanted something to show from all my efforts, but it was as if she was reminding me that the most important things in life were deeper than that. I felt like she was saying to me, “Keep bringing the fullness of your heart into every situation. Keep being relentlessly kind. The rest will take care of itself.”
—from Franciscan Media’s Off the Page
with host Stephen Copeland, featuring James Martin, SJ
