Second Sunday of Lent, 2025

I was reading a published letter by a nun, Sr. Ruth O’Callaghan, who died from an aggressive form of breast cancer in December of 2020. She was 43 years old. The letter I'm about to quote from was written shortly after her diagnosis in December of 2019.

Sister Ruth wrote, “You might think that, for nuns, everything is under control, or that we are bulletproof and these things simply do not happen to us. Yes, these things happen to us too…

A bomb of emotions exploded inside me, and I didn’t even know where I should start to try to calm myself down. For the first two days, I think I cried out of pure shock but, at the same time, I had peace. It is hard to describe. So many things were going through my head…but the only thought that was clear in my mind was that ‘I may well soon meet the Lord…’”

Sister Ruth’s letter continues: Jesus said, “‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock.’ I had never meditated on these words of the Lord so deeply and so intimately…So many of the prayers at Mass speak of the coming of the Lord, reminding us that ‘He is near.’ …The Lord has knocked on my door and, I, trembling, have opened it.…”

Sister Ruth continues: “We are so often trapped in the things we have to get done. Our feet stick to this world and sometimes we work as if we were going to stay here forever. Our view moves away from what is most important, and we forget about the great ‘why’ we are here in this world.” 

…In our second reading, Saint Paul writes, “Join with others in being imitators of me…For many…conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction. Their God is their stomach; their glory is in their ‘shame.’ Their minds are occupied with earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we…await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

…As Saint Paul wrote, we can be enemies of the cross, even though it’s unavoidable. The cross in our life could make us feel very badly toward God; it can make us very angry with God. And that's OK. That's a healthy emotion, but the cross is unavoidable. So, we can use our cross to get closer to God, or farther.

Sister Ruth was already on her way to heaven, then, she met her cross, and she used it to bring her even closer to Jesus. 

Let your cross get you closer to God because our getting angry with God will not help since the cross is going to be there no matter what. Let God help you carry it like Sister Ruth showed us God can.


Scripture readings for the day: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031625.cfm

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