Hey, I’m Fr. Mark Mary! — And I'm Fr. Angelus.
We are the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal and this is Ascension Presents.
Fr. Angelus, welcome back. —Thank you.
Good to have you back as always.
We are going to talk about bubbles... and the cross.
Fr. Angelus, make sense of that for us.
— Fr. Mark Mary and I had the opportunity to study Spanish in Guatemala
[this] past summer, and let's just be very honest.
HE studied Spanish, I tried but it just didn't really work out very well.
One of my favorite experiences is, as you know, we got a chance
to visit a hospital with kids with special needs and it was really beautiful and powerful.
Actually, Franciscans ran that hospital down there, so we got a tour one day.
And as we were going on the tour
there was this group of kids playing out in the courtyard
and there's one little kid in a wheelchair off by himself
and he was blowing bubbles.
And I thought — instantly thought to myself, “All right, this is my guy.”
So I went over and blowed bubbles with him,
and we were having a lot of fun blowing bubbles and enjoying life.
And he was giggling the whole time.
Again, like, the joyfulness and the playfulness of this kid
who probably suffered a lot,
especially being in the situation he was in; he was probably an orphan,
probably dropped off by his parents when he was younger,
and so regardless of what was going on in his life, here he is,
having the time of his life, it seemed, with bubbles.
And at some point I realized that I needed to go,
but that this was such a gift, again, for me.
And as I got up to walk away, this little boy started to swing his arms in his wheelchair.
And I didn't know exactly what he was doing.
I thought maybe he was playing or something like that, or maybe he was waving to me.
But as he started to swing his arms he actually reached out and grabbed my rosary
and he pulled it close and he kissed it...
and he kissed the cross on my rosary.
And for that, there was like, a moment of revelation, Father, for me.
The Christian life — this interrelationship between the joy of life, and the struggle and the suffering of life.
And this kid in Guatemala who suffers so much,
he has this balance of the Christian life in mind.
That he suffers a lot and that's the cross — he embraced the cross,
he didn't just look at it, he kissed it, he embraced it.
But then he experiences the joy... of bubbles, the joy of playing,
the joy of life there.
So it was like this intersection in this little boy —
to experience the truth of the Christian life, keeping this in balance.
— Yeah, and it's this Christian paradox;
and a lot of people find it hard to believe or accept or to live from.
Because we want the light-heartedness, the fun, the sort of lack of concern of bubble blowing,
and we want just to sort of have a good time.
And we think, somehow, that that's mutually exclusive
from the embracing and the kissing of the cross.
But the paradox of of the Christian life which this young man manifests,
and which I think we've experienced in our own life,
that somehow on this earth, for Christians,
these can coexist at the same time.
We can have sort of the playfulness, the confidence,
just to, sort of, blow bubbles,
knowing that we’re, you know, we're loved by the Father, he has a plan for our life, he's with us.
And at the same time we can kiss and embrace the cross because
we have this eternal hope, this eternal perspective.
My brothers and sisters, let's go ahead and look at this truth in our own lives.
Have we seen ways in which we can be experiencing the cross, and like, a real cross,
but at the same time, a sort of light- heartedness and joyfulness and a playfulness
because we know that God the Father is with us and has a plan —
an eternal plan — for our lives.
We thank you so much for watching,
go ahead and give us an ‘Amen’ for God's goodness.
Use that button we've made the ‘Amen’ button.
If you want to let us know the ways you've experienced
the cross and the bubble blowing in your own life, use the comments.
And as always feel free to subscribe so that you don't miss any of these videos.
Fr. Angelus, pop quiz. Spanish time! What's the sign off?
— Adios? Oh! Poco e poco. [Laughter]
Somos peregrinos. — Somos peregrinos.
Poco a poco — Poco a poco
Vamos a llegar -Vamos a llegar
There we go! See! —C’mon!
Bye bye!