sing a little louder
From the short film "Sing a Little Louder"
I don't know about you, but some words stop me in my tracks. I am glad they do. I don't want to say, nevermind pray, something I don't mean. At Mass, when we pray the Confiteor we tell the Lord, "I have greatly sinned, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault."
The words that stop me aren't "that which I have done…" I know what I have done. I spend plenty of time thinking through that. It's "that which I have failed to do" that screams at me—because when the Lord asks me to do what is hard, I turn up the volume of my life. I drown out His ask with other things that are still good… but they aren't what He is asking.
Does that matter? ….*shaking with trepidation*….it matters.
Nothing illustrated this better than this short video, "Sing a Little Louder," inspired by a true story about a little church during WWII. I first watched it a few years ago, and it changed the way I think. Take a minute to watch it here, then ask yourself, how often do we try to distract ourselves in the hopes of drowning out those who are begging for our help? How often does serving the "least of these" take a back seat to daily schedules, football games, bunco night, and Netflix?
I know that I am guilty; I don't do enough. I try to appease myself with mantras like "I'm a good person," "I do enough," "I deserve a break," "It's someone else's turn…" The reality is that we are going to be judged on what we fail to do.
Fail. To. Do.
As the train passes by, how many of us choose to look into our laps, pretending we're doing enough by merely going to Church? The truth is, when the train passes by and we become aware of what must be done, we must act. It never matters how hard it may be, how intimidated we are, or how out of our comfort zone we are being called—we must act.
Because it is in those moments when we feel completely helpless to do anything—but try anyway— that we serve Him most reverently. It is in those moments when we allow ourselves to be yelled at and spit at, and every action we take seems like a futile attempt against a culture that rejects all that we believe, that we can become instruments in our Father's hands. It is when we are a breath away from tears, but we faithfully love and serve anyway that we begin to conform our hearts to His.
I invite each of you to encounter our beautiful October, Respect Life Month calendar called The Little Way, with a heart towards teaching your children, your students, or your parish about the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of human life— if you don’t do it, who will?
Don’t forget to download this week’s PGS below to share her with your children!
For more information about joyfully reawakening a culture of life within your domestic church, visit www.pelicanprojectministry.org.
