Along Comes Mary
Sometimes saints walk among us and leave our lives changed forever.
Miss Simmonis was just that person for so many.
Fresh out of Notre Dame, she arrived at the school where I was teaching during the final year when we had two classrooms of each grade. She was gentle and kind; never raised her voice; and loved literature, music and her faith with a sincerity that is often hard to find in young people beginning to make their way in the world.
She was serious about the gift of Catholic education, too, so she wasn’t afraid to challenge her eighth grade students, making them successful through discipline and hard work. As you can imagine, she often hit a brick wall with the 14-year-olds that sat before her.
However, she was tenacious. She prayed with them and for them every day, and she invited them to begin to have a living relationship with the Savior who laid down His life for them. She really loved Jesus, and wanted them to fall in love with Him, too.
Miss Simmonis was making a home at this little Catholic elementary school on the outskirts of Philadelphia, and she once told me she could imagine staying there for decades to come. “I know God needs me here,” she told me.
Imagine, then, how her heart must have twisted when she got the news at the end of her first year that she was being let go. The school was losing students rapidly, and each grade was being constricted to one classroom per grade for the following academic year.
What happens when something you love is suddenly taken from you? What do you do when you are asked to leave behind a life, a career or a relationship that has meant everything to you?
I’ve been pondering that question a lot in light of this Sunday’s Scriptures readings.
Jonah had no intentions of going to Ninevah, no matter how the word of the Lord came to him. He wasn’t leaving his secure lifestyle behind to preach to a bunch of sinners who, in his opinion, didn’t deserve God’s mercy. A little cold-hearted, no doubt, but I think we can appreciate his reluctance.
Where I am really struck by the invitation to “let go,” however, is the personal call from Jesus to a rag-tag group of fisherman to drop their nets and follow him.
What a moment that must have been:
Did they wrestle with saying goodbye to their father? Did they question whether leaving their livelihood was wise? They loved what they did … it’s all they knew. What if this Rabbi was a fraud? What if he was selling them a bill of goods?
They were surrendering both their passion and their security to someone who was simply saying to the world: Repent and believe. Is he really the Savior we need?
(How many times have we pondered that same sentiment when the storm-fed waves come crashing into the fishing trawlers of our own lives?)
And yet, they did just that -- dropped their nets and immediately followed.
I’d like to think I could do that if asked. Truthfully, I would probably want to wrap that finishing net tighter around me and not let go.
When it comes to discipleship, though, here’s the message that this “come after me” moment demands: Tough things are often asked of us in order to bring about better things.
It really is the heart of what it means to die-to-self and to pick up our cross daily and follow after him. It’s the trust that we see from Mary’s ‘Thy Will be done’ at Nazareth to her ‘Thy Will be done’ at Calvary. It’s the surrender of our wills to God’s Love that says: I don’t understand, but You know what is best for my soul, my future, my eternal salvation.”
How beautiful it is when we start to really see that and believe it to be how God works in our lives.
Imagine viewing everything that happens to us through the lens of understanding that the Lord is using it all to purify and prepare us to return to Him one day – as well as to see Him in the present moment and enter into a deeper relationship with Him wherever we are right now.
That means: every work setback or relationship failure, when prayed about and offered to God, will open new doors for new beginnings.
Every sickness and suffering, when united to His Cross, will be used to shape our hearts like unto His, so that we, too, love with a mercy and compassion that can only come from one who is willing to walk Calvary with Christ.
Every sinful inclination, when confessed with a sincere desire to break free from the chains of Satan’s power, will be used by the Lord to remind us of the humility we need to rely fully on Him. Always remember that Peter, Mary Magdalen, Paul and even Jonah were great sinners who sought the Lord’s mercy and then allowed Him to transform them with his love.
There’s no denying it: these are all hard things. Going to confession and repenting for one’s sins takes a boat-load of courage. Carrying a cross for years or a lifetime takes much grace and perseverance. Enduring a sudden job or love loss requires a constant prayerfulness that keeps us from bitterness.
And so the question remains: how do we stay open to tough times becoming better times?
In a word: thankfulness rooted in trust. (Okay, four words – but you get the drift.)
Every saint and saint-to-be found ways to thank God, knowing that in every cross they faced, there was always resurrection to come. It’s what He promised because it is who He is. And God doesn’t lie.
When we trust Him enough to leave our nets … when we are willing to say goodbye to the security of our own making in order to let Him live and move in us … and when we can say “I thank You for bringing good from this, even though I may not yet see it,” then we’ve done exactly what Peter, Andrew, James and John have done as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.
The day after Miss Simmonis found out she was losing her teaching position, she was understandably emotional. Her heart was with these kids in this school. But I’ll never forget what she told me as we sat in her classroom overlooking the old stone church where she would often sneak away at lunch to pray. She said: “I’m really sad, but I trust God isn’t done with me yet. He’s getting me ready for another yes.”
Getting me ready for another yes.
That next door brought her to a husband she may not have met had she stayed in Drexel Hill as well as to a new high school community of Catholic school girls who fully embraced her love for literature, music and faith. It would be these very same people who would be by her side as God called her back to Himself when she was but 35-years-old, having carried the cross of cancer in her final years.
She taught so many what life is truly about. She embraced the Cross and offered love in return. And no doubt she offered her suffering for the very students and husband who rallied around her as she made her way back to the Father.
Miss Simmonis knew that hard things lead to better things when we trustfully surrender to God, and in all things remain thankful.
On her last day at the school where we taught, she accompanied the eighth grade class at their graduation Mass by playing a song composed by a fellow Notre Dame alum, Danielle Rose. It captures the heart of discipleship, and is a fitting way to capture today’s Gospel. The song is called “Be God’s”:
Where the world is merciless, be God’s mercy.
Where the world is hopeless, be God’s hope.
Where there is injustice, be God’s justice.
Where there is sadness, be God’s joy
Where the world is doubting, be God’s faith.
Where there is ingratitude, be God’s grace.
Where there is confusion, be God’s truth.
Where there is weakness, be God’s strength:
Let your life change the world one person at a time.
Let your life be the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ.
As the bread becomes His Body, we can be the living sign.
With God’s love, change the world – with your life.