Endurance

02-26-2023The Pastor's PenFr. Matthew R. Paratore, S.T.L., J.C.L.

Dear Friend,

We need to possess an enduring love. Endurance: the power to withstand hardship or stress, to keep on going despite all setbacks.

I recently heard of a Catholic woman who, after having four children, started running and then entered marathons. This year, she is running the London Marathon, but before she does, she will run four other marathons each day before the London Marathon. So she will be running 26 miles every day for five days. It will take great endurance to complete, but on British TV she said she is committed to enduring all that she will have to face to complete the marathons set before her.

Now consider all that Jesus endured for you in coming to this sinful world: the hatred before the so called elite, the cursing and mockery from Jew and Gentile, his abandonment from his disciples, the beating and floggings before the authorities, his humiliation in being stripped naked and sentenced to death upon a cross, forced to carry his own cross to Calvary upon his open wounded back, then nailed to it his hands and his feet and raised up into the ground, driven down into the socket of the ground, and then to be seemingly forsaken by God as he bore our sins in his body as darkness filled the entire world. Yet our Lord endured it all for us!

And he cried out in John 19:30, "It is finished!" Cries of victory—of accomplishment! What he had set out to do, he had endured to the end and had completed his task for us.

Jesus prayed always and never lost heart and He was God and the Son of God!

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