Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Spanish Mass * (sighing in embarassment)


Have you ever had one of those moments where you are speaking to a total stranger and every word they say hits a nerve and and you suddenly become aware that God is speaking to you through this person. Dang, I hate when that happens. It happened yesterday at a swapmeet of all places. I met this Mexican man who spoke little English but was very interested that I was priest (I was in clerics). He proceeded to converse with me about the church . He asked if we had a Mass in Spanish and I told him not at the moment. He looked down at the ground for a moment and gently kicked a little piece of gravel then looked up at me again and said "they need to have a Mass in Spanish". I was shocked because he said it with such authority. I told him that I didn't have much confidence in my Spanish and couldn't preach. He did the looking at the ground again and I knew I was in for it. "God will give you able to speaking". That beautiful and poorly constructed sentence absolutely convicted me. Here is this man, communicating to me a complicated theological truth in a language that he has no mastery in. DANG! Do you think that maybe that was a message for me? hmmmmmm
God has been dealing with me about the Spanish Mass thing for a while and I was doing my usual "la la la I can't hear you" thing. Well I heard him loud and clear through the broken English of this man named Roberto. I will start the Spanish Mass again in January. BUT I NEED HELP!God has already promised to bring it . I don't have any confidence in speaking Spanish. But I know that whole countries have accepted Jesus as savior through people who could barely speak their lingo. It's time for me to practice what I preach (again, I hate when that happens). It's hard to admit when something frightens you. Well, this Spanish Mass thing scares the squishy stuff out of me. I don't just want to get through the Mass, I know I can do that. I want to truly celebrate the Mass with them. That's way different. Pray hard cuz this priest is going BIG. I never knew I was such a scaredy cat.

3 Comments:

Blogger joannmski said...

Whoa! That was a God thing.

"God will give you able to speaking." Amen.

Go Grande o Go Home!

11:31 AM  
Blogger Sinnersaint said...

Good to see He's smacking other people around too!

1:54 PM  
Blogger glorygrl said...

Vaya Grande o Vaya A Casa.

just please don't make me sing those silly cursillo songs in spanish anymore...

3:24 PM  

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