Tasting Blood

Embracing adversity as a means to grow

Isaiah 1:10, 16-20

Hear the word of the LORD, princes of Sodom! Listen to the instruction of our God, people of Gomorrah! Wash yourselves clean! Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good. Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow. Come now, let us set things right, says the LORD: Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; Though they be crimson red, they may become white as wool. If you are willing, and obey, you shall eat the good things of the land; But if you refuse and resist, the sword shall consume you: for the mouth of the LORD has spoken!

          I want to thank everyone who filled out the surveys after the retreat last week. You’ll be happy to know that to the questions, “What did you enjoy MOST about the retreat?” everyone answered, “The long movie!” No, I’m just kidding. Actually, the only person who liked the movie was Patrick Jones. Patrick knew the answer to my question: “Why did Msgr. O’Flaherty ask Col. Kapplar for his signature?” He said, “So he could forge it!” By the way, a huge congrats to our Quiz Bowl Team on their victory as State Champs; I am very proud of you.

          But do you know why I made you watch that long and complicated movie? Well, so you’d know a little about what happened in Rome during WWII. But also to test your endurance, to push you out of your comfort zone, to make you suffer a little. There’s an old saying, “Whatever doesn’t kill you only makes your stronger.” Adversity, struggle, suffering makes you bigger and better. There are four captains on the Southside Rebel football team this year. Do you know where all four of those captains went to junior high? It wasn’t Ramsey, or Chaffin, or Greenwood. It was Trinity. Do you know what happened when they played football at Trinity? They got their faces mashed in; they tasted blood in their mouths. But that adversity only made them stronger and better, faster and smarter. A retreat is about growing as a person, and nothing helps you grow like adversity, just like manure is helps flowers to grow.

          This is the same point that Isaiah makes in the first reading: adversity makes you grow and can even purify you and make you holy. Isaiah prophesies that the Jews will be deported into bondage during the Babylonian Captivity. They will lose their lands and they will suffer as slaves. But, he says, this adversity will also purify you. He writes: “Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; though they be crimson red, they may become white as wood.” In other words, through their adversity and suffering, they will become stronger and better and holier. That Babylonian Captivity was like a retreat for the Jews, and they were purified as the People of God.

          Boys and girls, you are constantly confronted with choices; you can do A or you can do B. Well, don’t always choose the easy and comfortable and pleasant path. Sometimes choose adversity and difficulty. For example, choose the AP subject instead of the normal subject.  If you’re good at math, take more English.  If you’re good at English, take more math. Eat the salad and vegetables instead of the cheese pizza. Be friends with someone no one talks to instead of hanging out with the cool kids. Play football at Trinity instead of Chaffin. In other words, taste a little blood in your mouth – it will make you bigger, stronger, better and holier.

          Let me conclude with this poem by Robert Frost that captures this point far more eloquently. It is called “The Road Not Taken.”

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth

Then took the other, just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear,

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden back.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

I took the one less traveled by

And that has made all the difference.

          Boys and girls, it’s not so bad to taste a little blood in your mouth by adversity; it can make all the difference in your own life.

Praised be Jesus Christ!