Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

Sometimes, I imagine the voice of God sounds like Johnny Cash.

I’ve heard other voices but, for some reason, his comes back to me as the one. I think there’s a groundedness to his voice that makes it feel of the Earth. His voice speaks of ages past and long, hard-won experience.

His voice also speaks of love and its joyful, heart-breaking, and death-defying course.

A simple quote of his comes to mind on this day as we mark the Feast of the Saint Mary the Virgin (also called the Feast of the Assumption).

Cash said, “All of your life, you will be faced with a choice. You can choose Love or Hate. I choose Love."

I choose love. That is what this feast day marks.

God chose the unlikeliest of women to hear his message as he chose love.

God chose the unlikeliest of places to make himself known as he chose love.

God chose the meanest of circumstances in which to pour out riches of his grace as he chose love.

I don’t have a perfect model for Mary’s voice yet. Maybe that’s because her voice is all of ours.

We get to choose all through our life, too. We get the chance, again and again, to say yes. We get to choose love, too.

We get to say, “Let it be unto me according to thy word” when God offers love day by day, hour by hour, era by era.

Before we were born, God chose love.

At the gift of our birth, God chose love.

At the moment we were baptized, God chose love.

All through the course of our life, again and again, God chose love.

And when our last hour comes, when goodbye in this life becomes hello in the next, God will choose love. And we will hear him welcome us home, for love’s sake—and maybe he will sound just like Johnny Cash.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Robert