Our parish recently lost our webmaster and digital media coordinator. While we were looking for a replacement, I decided that it might be good for me to learn how to manage the website. Things started auspiciously, and I actually felt like I was getting the hang of it, but ultimately that feeling was fool’s gold. I deleted half of our home page (thank God for the reset button), I could not get pictures to upload and our email links would not map to the right addresses. My commitment to learn was quickly depleted, and my goodwill was replaced by frustration. However, the saints reminded me of the need to persevere. St. Camillus said it best: “Commitment is doing what you said you would do, after the feeling you said it in has passed.”

Thankfully, we were able to hire someone to manage the website, but this experience has remained with me. I imagine that at times we have all lost motivation, desire or enthusiasm for something, maybe a new hobby, sport or project. Perhaps at times even our faith has become stale or laborious. The only remedy we have is to return to God in prayer and the sacraments and keep on trying. St. John of the Cross, an expert on the spiritual life, writes: “Never give up prayer, and should you find dryness and difficulty, persevere in it for this very reason. God often desires to see what your soul has, and love is not tried by ease and satisfaction.” Ease and satisfaction are generally in our bailiwick, but they are not the way of the cross or the way of our faith. God certainly never gives us more than we can handle, as many saints realized, but as St. Teresa of Calcutta said, “I wish he would not trust me quite so much.”

A priest friend of mine told me a story about a May crowning that enlightened his spiritual life. Each year, the parish’s second graders would wear their first Communion outfits to an all-school Mass, during which the girl chosen as the May queen would process in, ascend a stool and crown a statue of the Blessed Mother with a floral crown. The girl chosen one particular year was very small, so small that she could not reach Mary’s head, even with the stool. After trying several times, she took the crown over to a smaller statue of St. Joseph and put it around his hands. When the priest went over to help her, she said, “No, Father, thank you, but I asked St. Joseph to give this to his wife.” I am not sure if our diminutive friend had read “The Little Engine That Could” or the story of Zacchaeus from Luke 19, but she certainly knew the lesson. All things are possible for those who endure in faith.

Patience and Humility

Once, after a severe thunderstorm, several of our schools were closed for days due to impassable roads and lack of power. I asked one student if he was getting tired of having no power. “Heck no,” he replied. “The power will eventually come back on, but until it does, there is no homework or tests. I will be just fine.” Now that is a means of looking forward to a future full of hope while rejoicing in the present. St. Paul, in his Letter to the Philippians, says, “I have the strength for everything through him who empowers me” (4:13). Even if it does mean sitting in the dark until the light shines again.

Although I am thankfully not the parish’s webmaster, I do still attempt to learn as much as I can about the process. It may be my own stubborn pride, but I also think that is God teaching me patience and humility. It is easy to give up and walk away, but much harder to place ourselves in the loving hands of our God, who loves us. If at first you do not succeed, at least know who you can call upon for help! 

FATHER MICHAEL ACKERMAN is the pastor at Resurrection Parish, Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, and chaplain at Seton LaSalle Catholic High School in Pittsburgh.