From the Pastor's Desk - August 24 2025

Dear St. Martin’s Parishioners,

There is a story told of St. Teresa of Avila that she was travelling to a certain place, and she had an unfortunate accident by falling to the ground from her carriage or from her horse. She instantly complained to the Lord about her misfortune, which occasioned his response, “Do not complain daughter. This is how I treat my friends.” She quickly shot back, “If this is how you treat your friends, it is no wonder you have so few!”

We have all had the experience of feeling that the Lord has let us down or failed us when we were counting on him. Some interpret this as the Lord punishing them (for long past sins?). That is almost certainly not the case, though. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews addresses this experience in this Sunday’s second reading: “Endure your trials as “discipline”; God treats you as sons. For what “son” is there whom his Father does not discipline? At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.”

My best baseball coach from my youth was Mr. Palumbo. He was hard on us. If he knew we didn’t play up to our standards, he didn’t mince words in letting us know. Yet I feel like I became a better baseball player under him than under any other coach. I wanted to do well for him, because I knew that he cared, probably more than I did.

God desires our perfection in the moral and spiritual life, again, much more than we actually do. Much of his “discipline” is his allowing us to suffer. At the time we don’t know why. In our egoism and shortsightedness, we only see the negative: our humiliation, disappointment, failing, etc. But the reality is, we don’t know on our own how to progress in the life of grace. It can feel like he is constantly frustrating us. In reality, it is the complete opposite that is occurring. He is purifying us, instructing us to become more humble, dependent, docile and poor in spirit. It takes faith and humility to allow ourselves to be trained by the Lord. For those who have eyes to see the Lord’s merciful action in the disappointments and sufferings of life, “the peaceful fruit of righteousness (holiness)” is the end result. You, too, are the Lord’s friends. Trust that he knows what he is about in every circumstance of your life.

In Christ,

Fr. Dave