With Many Apologies

On Monday of this week, I posted a link to a New York Times story about a group of nuns in Hollywood whose ministry is to continually pray for the people of that town, believing it to be "the Babylon of the USA."

I made a comment about how the sisters' singular focus on prayer, without, as the reporter noted, soup kitchens or door-to-door evangelism, "raised a red flag for me."

One of my fellow youth ministers, who is preparing to become a nun, challenged me on this point, asking if I believed prayer wasn't enough, or wasn't necessary.

Both my original comment and my first response to the challenge were hasty and ill-considered, and I apologize for them, to her and to anyone else who may have been offended by them. I ask for the forgiveness of my readers and promise to think more carefully before posting in the future. I have decided to remove Monday's post completely.

I prayed about this situation on my way to a meeting with one of my students yesterday, and the words that came to my mind were "Not everyone who says 'Lord, Lord' will enter the Kingdom, but only those who have done the will of my Father." And I realized what I had done in my evaluation of the Hollywood nuns was assume I knew God's will for them better than they did. I don't get to decide what makes a full life for any other person. When God calls a person to a life of prayer, that makes a full and complete life for that person, and a powerful witness for the Kingdom, because that is what God commanded. And doing what God commands is never less than enough.

Thank you for challenging an obviously flawed statement, and all God's blessings in your call.

Isaac