DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Saturday, October 13, 2018

Christ said to His disciples just hours before His crucifixion …“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.” – John 14:18-19

Christ, as He looks into the faces of His disciples in the flickering of the oil lamps, mindful of the events about to take place, shares a most poignant, pastoral moment.  “I will not leave you orphaned.”  This moment when Christ gazed into the souls of His spiritual brothers always invites me to love all the deeper.

So many times in a lifetime of pastoral ministry, I have experienced both the feeling of being an orphan and ministering to people who fear to be left orphaned.  “Am I the only person who feels this way?  Am I fearful of being abandoned?” Often, this tearful plea was spoken in grieving words, but more often, in gaze through tearful eyes.  It was in these moments, that I powerfully sensed the Lord coming to us.

I believe we all have had moments when we felt abandoned, alone in the circumstance, wondering if there is anyone who understands us.  I believe we all have had moments when we felt detached from the One who surely loves, wondering if that Someone will ever return.  All through the Psalms, so mentioned in the Prophets, even from the cross when Christ cried out, “Why have You forsaken me?”, we witness the mortal anxiety of being left alone.  I believe Christ in those moments in the Upper Room tried to prepare His disciples for those hours of feeling abandoned.  And in time … they began to understand that Christ had not abandoned them … but return them in resurrected glory and in the presence of the Comforting Counselor, the Spirit.

Loved Ones, when I felt abandoned or detached … I have cried out and the Lord have always come to me.

Always in Christ’s Service,

Fr. Charitas de la Cruz