Fr. Jacob's September 2015 Newsletter Message

May he grant you your heart's desire

have you ever noticed how Scripture opens with repeated stories of parents faced with the heartbreaking loss of their children. The Book of Genesis is just full of them. Adam with his murdered son Abel. Abraham and Hagar with Ishmael, who Abraham's faith in the Lord. Jacob and Rachael with both Joseph and Benjamin.

Once you begin to look - you might see there's another tale of heart rending loss right at the beginning of the tale - the Lord's loss of his children Adam and Eve. Then you might look forward. The Lord is from eternity going to send his own Son, who will be brutally murdered by the injustice and sin of the world. The Father knows this loss.

The repeated story of the lost children, invites those who see to look forward to the tale of the only Son of the Father.

The suffering and brokenness of the world is embodied in parents' love for the child that is lost. There's no effort to hide the wound. The pain cuts deep. I have read the story of Abraham and Hagar and Ishmael hundreds of times, and each time I recall the day I sat with a woman at morning prayer, long ago, in my first parish, who wept as she read the story, remembering the child she had lost.

And yet - the heartache, and the wound, isn't all there is. The Lord again and again astonishingly recuperates, restores, and grants back life. He will save the lost children of Adam and Eve. The faith of righteous Abel still speaks despite his shed blood. Ishmael is saved in the wilderness. Isaac is spared, as the Lord had always intended. Joseph is restored to Jacob.

For the only Son of the Father will triumph over the sin and heartache and loss of the world, and grant us our hearts' desires (Psalm 37:4). But learn this too: the ways in which the wound is healed and the loss recuperated lie with the Lord. I trust he will grant us back to each other to love at the resurrection of the dead and whilst we pilgrimage through this live, the Lord, will ceaselessly bring good out of our suffering and reward for our faith. What the world cannot give, the Lord will grant: your heart's desire. Parents with their lost children and those whose heart broke for the child that never came will astonishingly rejoice (Isaiah 54:1).

The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. (Psalm 118: 23-24)

I think of all of this as I prepare for my sons to leave again for college and look to my daughter leaving in just a year. It feels like a small grief and a perplexing joy. We have prepared for this for so long, and yet it still feels like a strange loss. I pray for their futures. I pray they may be granted back faithful and fulfilled. I pray they may trust the Lord to resist the world, the flesh and the devil. Most of all, above all other things, I pray they may know that they are beloved by God, and the Father gave his only Son that they might live. For like Abraham and Jacob and their children, they are my heart's deisre.

May the Lord grant you your heart's desire, may you rejoice at this wondrous love in the midst of this broken world. I pray the Lord may protect your loved ones, bring good our of your heartbreak, through the Son he gave to death, that the world might live through his life.

With my love,

Fr. Jacob