Closing of the General Visitation
- Fr Raphael Ma, CR
- November 9, 2022
On Wednesday November 9th, the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica, Fr. Evandro Miranda Rosa, CR, Vicar General of the Congregation of the Resurrection met with the CRs of the Ontario Kentucky Province for a concluding session.
Following his report on the Canonical Visitation of the past two weeks, Fr. Evandro shared another reflection on a passage from the Gospels, this time from Mark’s account of Jesus’ encounter with the “Rich Young Man.”
The passage begins with the man full of enthusiasm, who we hear ran to Jesus, knelt before Him, and addressed Jesus as “Good Teacher”. But his happiness and enthusiasm quickly turned into sadness when he found himself unable to accept Jesus’ invitation.
Jesus’ call was sincere, Fr. Evandro observed, meeting the man’s enthusiasm with a similar liveliness that we see in the five imperatives Mark has Jesus use: “go”, “sell”, “give”, “come”, and “follow”.
Fr. Evandro then asked the question – because the man did not accept the invitation, we might ask ourselves, did Jesus fail? Upon closer consideration, we see that the man went away grieving. He was not happy as he went away, and in that we find an opportunity for hope – that there is a possibility that this restlessness and dissatisfaction would lead him to change his mind later.
Although we all experience sadness, disappointment and anger, as we see in the case of the “Rich Young Man”, these are n opportunity for hope and can be source of energy for us to change course and follow Jesus. We can of course give up, but these negative things can impel us to rethink what we are doing.
After a brief question period and a break, the CRs gathered for a lunch at Resurrection Manor before seeing off Fr. Evandro as he heads south of the border to conduct the Canonical Visitation of the USA province of the Congregation of the Resurrection.
