(Novena to the Holy Spirit)
The
earth is indeed blessed among all the planets in our solar system because of
our heaven. As the heavens have made the earth a garden rich with life like so
is God over those who are faithful and love Him.
In
today’s gospel our Lord asks Peter if he loves Him three times. One time for each of the times Peter denied
our Lord on the eve of His crucifixion thus nullifying Peter’s denials and
restoring him. Christ asks Peter with each affirmation to 1) feed His lambs 2)
tend His sheep and 3) feed His sheep. I
see a connection between Christ’s institution of Peter’s leadership and our book
study of leadership in Character is Destiny.[1]
First
Christ asks Peter if he loves Him more than the others thus establishing
Peters leadership on love (Mother Theresa). Next Christ tells Peter to feed His
lambs to give them a core of strength. If we wish to develop strength in ourselves
and others it is imperative that we give hope, confidence, a work ethic
(industry), confidence, resilience, self-control and courage to the lambs in
our charge.
Secondly
Christ asks Peter to “tend His sheep” or that is to give a firm purpose to
direct their efforts to create the Kingdom of God. In our book study likewise over the next
six weeks we will be examining people who best portrait the traits of idealism,
responsibility, diligence, righteousness, cooperation and citizenship.
Lastly
Christ asks Peter to “Feed His sheep” by having an understanding heart and
to be compassionate, faithful, merciful, tolerant, forgiving and generous which
we will study in the following weeks.
Today
we will be looking at the idealism of Sojourner Truth who was a slave who
became an abolitionist and a women’s rights activist. Sojourner Truth was born Isabella
Baumfree in 1797 in Ulster County, New York. Sojourner’s first spoken language
was Dutch which caused her a great deal of suffering when her ownership as a
slave was transferred to an English speaking master that took rods heated to
beat her with because she couldn’t speak English. The scars from this beating stayed with her
till her death. Eventually Isabella was freed by the efforts of Quakers and a
kindly Dutch family (Van Wagener) who hated slavery. Eventually Isabella changed her name to
Sojourner Truth after God told her to and took up a wandering ministry where
her ideals on freedom as a religious and oppressed former slave and woman were
put to test.
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