The Last Beatitude

I received an email this morning from someone asking me how many beatitudes are in the official list. I went to my Essential Catholic Handbook, and there were nine listed. I quickly recopied them and sent them to her in an email, but when I got to the last one, I realized that God was trying to speak to me through this little request.

I had been mulling over an exchange I had with the previous editor at the St. Louis Review - about 18 months ago. The memory is a heartache for me, because the Review is the paper that published me first (as a Catholic writer). It is my home paper, and I enjoy reading it very much.

I had received numerous positive emails from the former editor during the years I wrote for the Viewpoints page. The editor (at that time) was a great encourager on a number of occasions. But then something happened. Out of the blue, he wrote to say that he was troubled by my writing. Specifically, he felt I had unresolved issues concerning my father's death, and this theme seemed to pop up too often in my column.

I didn't know how to respond to this, except to remind him that he knows me only through my writing, but I wanted to point out that my father's death had been the catalyst for my conversion. Dad's suffering was the downpayment on my journey home to Mother Church. Of course, this experience would come up now and then in my articles.

But not because I was still struggling with the loss. But because God, in His mysterious plan, used even this to bring me my greatest joy.

This morning, as I thought about the exchange of emails a year and a half ago, I felt sad about how things ended. And God used the last beatitude to calm my spirit.

Blessed are those who are wrongly accused as they seek to work for the Kingdom. Blessed are those who experience heartache and misunderstanding on account of their service to Jesus Christ.

I still wish there would be closure here. I am confident that all will be worked out, if not in this life, on the other side.

Rosalind Moss wrote me an email once and reminded me that God knows everything, and he is working all things for our good, even when things seem tangled. Even when others misunderstand. Even when a door is shut - hard.

It's all grace.

And you know what? The net result of all of this is that, while I continue to have articles published in other diocesan papers and Catholic venues, because I am not popping up in my own paper, my life remains little and hidden. And I prefer that.

It is good. I wouldn't be surprised if that is the reason God permitted this misunderstanding in the first place. He wants me to have a quiet life in my home diocese. He wants me to have plenty of room to grow in grace.