A Personal Witness
by: Fr. William P. Neal

Saturday Ramblins, Vol. 2, No. 8 (April 17, 1999)

Has God ever had to hit you in the face in order to get your attention? That happened to me 40 years ago. It was Wednesday in Holy Week. I was reading from the 22nd chapter of St. Luke's Gospel (KJV) where Jesus says to Peter, " … Satan has desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat but I have prayed for you that your faith fail not. When you are converted strengthen the brethren." It was that last sentence, the 32nd verse that hit me -- "When you are converted then strengthen the brethren."

The passage haunted me for several years. Certainly I believed in the Virgin Birth, the Incarnation, the Resurrection and our Lord's Ascension. Certainly I was trying to serve Jesus faithfully as His priest and yet the harder I tried the more disappointing my spiritual life had become. I became a Priest Associate on the Order of the Holy Cross thinking that the Order on Life's discipline would help me achieve what was missing. But even a careful adherence to the Rule only developed the sin of pride, making me think I was doing better, that I was living a good moral life. Yet still the passage haunted me.

Have you ever asked yourself why there is all the talk about spiritual renewal in churches today? It is because most church members are right where I was 40 years ago. Congregations of all denominations have an abundance of frustrated individuals who are working hard to be what they think God wants them to be, but are not achieving it. The result is lives burdened with guilt, in many cases. There is a tendency for us to go about beating our breasts and saying, Mea culpa -- I am not worthy; I am not good enough.

Speaking through the prophet Jeremiah (31:31) God said, "I will make a new covenant with Israel. I will be their God and they shall be my people." Nowhere in the Bible does it say, "I will be your God if you will try to be like me." Rather, the Gospel message is this: I will be your God if you will just be my people and let me express myself in you and through you. The trouble for most church members is that though they may have excellent head knowledge they haven't yielded their hearts to God. (It had been said that the distance between heaven and Hell is from 12 to 15 inches -- that is the distance from our heads to our hearts.)

The story is told about a cow, a hen and a pig who were going along a country road and discussing their individual importance to their master. The cow said, "Let's face it girls, I am of more importance than either of you because I provide milk each day for my master and his family."

The hen replied, "Don't overlook the importance of my eggs for the master's breakfast and the family cooking."

The pig spoke up saying, "Your commitment to the master is only token at best. When my master sits down to a meal of ham and eggs, mine is a total commitment."

That is what God wants from each of us: a total commitment. It's why each day, each hour we need to yield ourselves anew to Jesus and to receive Him sacramentally -- His Body and His Blood.

(Ed. note: Fr. Neal was born in Newport, Vermont in 1910. After a brief career as a dairyman, cut short the night he accidentally tipped over 86 cans of milk, young William Parker Neal began his long career in service to God's people by entering a Methodist seminary . Ordained in 1943, Fr. Neal served in churches in Barre, Vermont, Claremont and Laconia, New Hampshire and Chambersburg, Pennsylvania where he served until his retirement. He is the author of several booklets on Indians in Vermont, a collection of stories and a volume of sermons. Fr. Neal was married to his beloved angel, Helen, for sixty years before she went home to God three years ago. They have one daughter.)