Secretaries Validated

Any priest worth his collar needs to be able to admit he's wrong and say he's sorry often. Apparently, this is something that the Lord has determined that I shall practice regularly.  This is especially important when you are posting your "private" journal entries on a public blog. Hopefully, the secretaries of Blessed Odo's will never discover this blog, but if they should, "I'm sorry. You were right, once again."

It turns out that Jane, the homeless woman of whom I wrote previously, had to be removed from our grounds because she was using drugs and refused to follow the rules.  While most of my righteous indignation evident in the post "Assault of the Secretaries" was exaggerated for the sake of drama (a few of these blog entries are fact turned to quasi-fiction), I never seem to get away with righteous indignation.  I'm just not righteous enough.  What did Jesus say?  "There is no one good but God; no not one."

The Lord has been working on my conscience a lot lately; so that even my semi-fictional exaggerations were troubling me.  Moreover, I am deeply troubled by the influence of bitter, complaining and divisive spirits in the Church.  They work tirelessly to bring discord between the members of Christ's Church, so that we often reach the point that we no longer want to have fellowship with one another.  How that must grieve our Lord.  If only we would be as consistent in our praise and encouragement for one another as we are in our criticisms.

Here is a real example of the caliber of people that I work with: A lady who is home bound called the office recently saying she was out of food and unable to go get any on her own.  The secretary who was on duty that day got together with the receptionist and the bookkeeper and they put some groceries together and took it to that lady and her sick husband.  This couple are not members of our church; they aren't visitors; we've never met them before this.  Not all of the office staff at Blessed Odo's are members of the same church, but they are all Christians who live out their faith well on a daily basis.  I could easily give you a dozen more examples of their sanctified hearts, but will have to save that for another time.

Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,  I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.'  Then the righteous will answer him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?  And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?  And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?'  And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'  - Matthew 25:34-40 [ESV]