PAROQUIA – Nssa Senhora do ROSÁRIO
Residência Nssa. Sra. de Fátima 4 August, 2025 LV:2
Trav. Carlos Pontes, 171
62.900-000 Russas, Ceará http://www.egfbenya.com
BRASIL e-mail: [email protected] [email protected]
Dear Friends, Family, Collaborators, Benefactors and Colleagues:
Decades pass as do the centuries! The annual event receives recognition; a step for family, clan and group celebration. The birthday, the reference and the anniversary are dates of commemoration. Our life span has increased from what it was generations past. Our time space for service, labor and ministry has amplified. It was noticeably more limited in past ages. Our intensity of action may have been less, more pacific in the past than it is now.
Time is in constant flux. Demands, questions, problems, challenges emerge, appear, disappear then reappear. Dynamics characterize every scenario of our being. We tend to procure stable, changeless situations; invariable scenarios. However dynamic is the key. Almighty God defines and addresses that dynamic. He allows us to perceive according to our CAPACITIES rather than to our desires and He expands those capacities according to His Will.
Images, private and public arise and emerge. The private images are plethora, generally unique according to each observer. Public images are mysterious: inspired by vice and virtue. The negative images seem easier to comprehend since one recognizes them on a personal level. The benevolent images, especially as perceived by others, can be perplexing. They range from simple toleration up to and including a veneration of one who knows something of his limits. One wonders with what objectivity people use their powers of observation. Perhaps it is more a power of God`s inspiration.
Legitimate suspicions, questions, premonitions are crucial. Personal SURRENDER to the Divine Will is the key. That surrender was difficult for me to learn. The Savior guides! That is easy to say but far more difficult to understand, live and to realize.
Well into my sixth decade of religious life, approaching 41 years of Holy Orders and hoping to begin my 80th year in this world, my personal surrender to the Divine Will looms ever more crucial. Imperfect as it is, that surrender will be judged only by Almighty God when I finally arrive before Him. There is much to regret, but far more to celebrate, to thank the Almighty in gratitude.
As age marks it presence in body and mind, capacities diminish. I am noticeably slower physically, mentally and perhaps spiritually. Yet that Surrender continues to beckon, a dynamic that itself may well be immortal.
I grasp it. I live it and celebrate it. I invite you and your families to join in spirit for the celebration of these commemorations. In praise and gratitude
in the Love of the “ONE”, Jesus Christ
Pe. Ed Benya, S.J.