14 June 2020
There is a wonderful story about a man who lived quite an extraordinary life.
He encountered one hardship after another. His wife died, his children never visited him.
His house was destroyed by fire, he lost his job.
Through it all he never became cynical, always remained cheerful,
never returned evil for evil.
Then he died. When he arrived at the pearly gates
everyone in heaven turned out to meet him–
The prosecuting angel stood up first, drew everyone’s attention,
pointed his finger at the man,
and then said in a weak voice: There’s nothing, no charges against him.
Everyone in heaven was stunned. Nothing, nothing?
Then the defending angel rose. The angel had a broad smile on her face.
She spoke of the man’s goodness in spite of his trials, compared to him Job and then was seated.
Everyone held their breath, for it was time for God to pronounce a judgement.
Finally, God spoke: “Not since Job have I heard of a life such as this. Turning to the man God
said: “Name it, anything on heaven and earth, anything in time and eternity and it shall be your reward.”
Again all of heaven held their breath.
They had never heard God promise so much. They waited for the man to give his answer.
Silence, silence, and then the man said:
“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, I would like to begin each day with a cinnamon roll.”
A newcomer to heaven standing in back of the crowd nudged another newcomer standing next to him and said: “That’s it? A cinnamon roll? That’s all he’s going to ask for? I guess that shows why he was so good all his life. He was too stupid to sin.”
The man whom he had poked looked at him and said:
“I guess that explains why you barely made it into heaven. You were so smart you never realized that we live day to day by the little things, not the big things
You and I come here often and we often ask for big things from God. Why not? We ask for miraculous cures, the perfect spouse, the perfect job, the perfect children, the perfect parents, perfect face and body.
We ask to get the winning numbers in the lottery, A’s on tests, and the miracles we dream up.
And mostly what we get is a little crust of bread, and a sip of wine…not enough to satisfy our hunger or satisfy our thirst…but God says it’s enough to live on, day by day. In fact it is everything you could ever want. It’s me.
On Corpus Christi the question is: Do we want God or do we want the things God can do for us?