In Granville, Ohio, there was a woman who was going through some difficult times. She thought that she would never experience joy in her life. However, one day when she was sitting in her kitchen crying, she noticed a small sparrow.
Somehow it had gotten into her kitchen. Anyhow she opened the door thinking the sparrow would just fly out.
There was a window above the door.
And instead of flying out through the open door, the sparrow kept trying to fly out through the closed window.
Several times the sparrow flew at the closed window and smacked itself into it, until it got so weak it could no longer fly; it only could walk.
But the story has a happy ending. When it could no longer fly, it simply walked out the door to freedom.
1. We fly into a closed window whenever we disconnect from our higher consciousness or awareness of the immense value of our immortal soul.
To illustrate: In 1000 AD, 186 years after the death of Emperor Charlemagne, officials of the Emperor Otto re-opened Charlemagne’s tomb. They found that he had been buried just as he had previously specified before he died. Charlemange had left instructions to be carried out in how he was to be buried: in a room in the Palace Chapel, seated upright on his marble throne, dressed in his imperial purple robes, crown on his head, and scepter in his hand and with the Bible on his knee opened to Mark 8:36. When they opened the tomb, indeed on his knee lay the Holy Scriptures, with a cold, lifeless finger pointing to Mark 8:36, which reads: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
Only by our awareness that our body and life on earth is of relative value, compared to the absolute good of eternal life, will we then have no fear of human agents of persecution. Men can impose suffering and death on the body but cannot force spiritual death on the soul (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible).
We walk out the door to freedom when we realize that there is nothing that either we do, or anyone can do to us, that will stay concealed --everything will be revealed and there is no secret that will not be known. (Matthew 10:26).
How and why do I hide my true self from others? What secret parts of my life do I need to bring to God for healing?
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.” (Matthew 10:28)
Sin is the only thing to fear and since Satan deceives and tempts souls into sin, he should be feared and resisted as our worst enemy.
2). Some sparrows do not survive flying into a closed window, even once.
Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge” (Matthew 10:29).
As Julian of Norwich wrote in her vision of the hazelnut, “I marveled how it might last, for it seemed it might suddenly have sunk into nothing because of its littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: ‘It lasts and ever shall, because God loves it.’”
E.g. Rabbi Yitzchak Vorst spoke of he and his wife losing a child in an accident.
When my wife and I returned from the hospital it was evening. Later that same evening a friend came to visit us. In his attempt to console us, he told us that earlier in his life he too had lost a child.
Yet his words did not penetrate. I had no feelings left. I could not think straight. We just sat there, my wife and I, with only one thought: Why...? Why...?
In my mind, helplessly, I tried to turn the clock back. I would take care that he did not go outside. Then he would not be hit by that car. Then we would not ever have had to go to the hospital, and he would be snug asleep.
No, it was no use. It just made no sense. Not long before I had tried to comfort a woman whose husband was killed in an accident. I had explained to her that she should not blame herself, as she probably did. She had sent her husband shopping, and on his way back he was run over. So she tended to dwell on the following regret: If only I had not sent him. If only I had asked someone else. Then... then... In this way, I thought, she was blaming herself.
I had tried to argue her out of this reasoning. I explained to her that her husband would have died at that very same moment even if she had not sent him shopping. His time had come. Death is an event which G-d “does not leave to chance.” Everything is Divine Providence; everything is orchestrated by Him, down to the smallest detail. If we have any awareness of G-d’s reality, we understand that such a drastic event as dying cannot be a matter of chance. All this I explained to the woman and she was grateful. “You are the first one who has said something sensible,” she told me.
Should all this not apply to us as well?” the rabbi asked.
Pure love gives the soul strength at the very moment of dying. [Diary of St. Faustina 324]
And on January 28, 1938, St. Faustina writes, “Today the Lord said to me, My daughter, write down these words: All those souls who will glorify My mercy and spread its worship, encouraging others to trust in My mercy, will not experience terror at the hour of death. My mercy will shield them in that final battle … (Diary, 1540).
God’s providence consists of leading things to their ends, including human beings.
But he wills to do so through intermediaries, or secondary causes.
That woman in Granville, Ohio, who was crying when she was watching that sparrow trying to fly out of a closed window used that as a sign to snap out of her self-pity.
Humans are called to choose good over evil because such moral choices constitute our good moral character, which belong to our perfection. (see Summa, St. Thomas Aquinas ST 1:22:1).
“Surely, it’s a higher destiny “to receive our final beatitude as the fruit of our labors and as the recompense of a hard-won victory...than to receive it without any effort on our part,” in cooperation with God’s grace. (George Hayward Joyce, Principles of Natural Theology, ch. 17).
Today on Father’s Day, Fathers can be an instrumental cause in leading their children to Jesus and eternal life.
Jesus called his Heavenly Father—Abba, Daddy.
Ryan Reynolds, an actor, said that “Being a dad isn’t just about eating gummy bears as your wife gives birth. It means being comfortable with the word hero.”
Father’s you matter a lot in your family: with you in their lives, your children will do better in school and in life.
Your leadership is key. Don’t leave the family’s faith life solely to your wife.
Go to Mass with your children, pray together regularly at home, read the Sunday Gospel as a family before Mass, and work-in a regular Rosary. The ultimate role of a father is to help his children get to heaven. The benefits are eternal, and the journey starts today.
Amen.
