To the Band of Brothers: April 23, 2021

Good morning!

On Wednesday morning I did a bible roulette for my prayer. Bible roulette is when you hold the spine of the bible with one hand, flip quickly through the pages with the thumb of the other, and with your eyes closed randomly stop on a page. You then read the paragraph you stop on and just reflect on it. Usually, my morning prayer periods are better prepared than that, but Wednesday morning, the day of our nerve-racking experience of getting county approval for our future projects, roulette was the best I could do.

It worked.

The pages stopped on the book of Revelation. It’s not a very popular book because it is a little difficult to understand. This misunderstood book is the last in the Bible and, because of its tales of dragons, beasts, and fallen angels, is oftentimes pinned as being a book of doom and destruction. Nothing can be farther from the truth. 

It was written by the apostle John. What he does is write a series of warnings and suggestions for the early Christian communities. These groups, formed right after the death and resurrection of Jesus, were experiencing severe persecution by Emperor Nero and the Roman Empire. Because of these dangerous times, John writes in code using imagery that only the Christians could understand.

A good example is found in the reading on which my finger landed. St. John writes to the church of Laodicea, an ancient town on the shores of the River Lycus in Asia Minor. In the letter, he addresses those Christians who have abandoned their faith out of fear of persecution and death. Using the image of an angel who speaks to the church he says: “I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth” (3:15-16). 

Some translations use the word “vomit” instead of “spit” which I personally find more powerful, but either way it's good stuff. John is getting after these Christians because he wants them to understand that discipleship is a call to suffering, a call to persecution. Therefore, they can’t be Christians one day and not the next out of convenience. Our faith has to be solid at all times, especially when things get bad and even dangerous. John tells us that we can’t have one foot in and the other out. Either we go all the way or we don’t, but never halfway. Anything else is for cowards.

As I prayed about that, I was reminded of the times when I was a kid that I nagged my dad night and day for a dog. I would come home with a four-legged animal I randomly found on the street and insist on keeping it. My father always resisted because he knew my modus operandi. He would complain that I was enthused about Fido now, but after a while would grow tired of it, complain it was too much of an inconvenience, and abandon the poor animal. At the end of the day, it would be he who would have to take care of it and ultimately force him to take the poor animal to what he referred to as “la finca” (supposedly a farm somewhere in Homestead where the dog would be able to run around with other dogs and be happier… I didn’t ask too many questions). 

The nature of the beast did not really matter. Dog, cat, parakeet, turtle, rabbit, hamster, or fish, they all ended up pushed aside after a while and eventually either in that open field somewhere in Homestead, a mile away from home, in a neighbor’s tree, in a canal, trapped behind the washing machine, or flushed down the toilet. My father knew all too well that ultimately my level of commitment and conviction would subside and he would be stuck with the dirty work.

Poor guy and poor animals who over the years suffered the lukewarm attitude I had towards them. Maybe I should have read the book of Revelation when I was a kid. It could have saved the lives of a lot of animals.

Auspice Maria,

Fr. Willie ‘87