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While
Peter was below in the courtyard, one of the high priest’s maids
came along. Seeing Peter warming himself, she looked intently at
him and said, “You too were with the Nazarene,
Jesus.” But he denied it saying, “I neither know nor
understand what you are talking about.” So he went out into
the outer court. Then the cock crowed. The maid saw him and
began again to say to the bystanders, “This man is one of
them.” Once again he denied it. A little later the
bystanders said to Peter once more, “Surely you are one of them;
for you too are a Galilean.” He began to curse and to
swear, “I do not know this man about whom you are
talking.” And immediately a cock crowed a second
time. Then Peter remembered the word that Jesus had said to him,
“Before the cock crows twice you will deny me three
times.” He broke down and wept.
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Perhaps
there is no pain as great as mental pain. In the movie
“Flightplan,” Kyle Pratt was a jet propulsion engineer and
one of the designers of a new jumbo jet she and her daughter were
using to cross the Atlantic. She had just lost her husband and
had all but mentally shut down. Suddenly, she found that her daughter
Julia was missing, something that does not seem possible on an
airplane. Not only that, after trying to be rational so that the
crew would not simply dismiss her, she discovered that the passenger
list
lacked her daughter’s name, the departure gate at Munich saying
her
daughter had not entered the plane, and her daughter's boarding pass
and
backpack were no where to be found. The crew gradually felt that
she was
traumatized and was fantasizing. She went into a state of panic,
and because of the mental pain, did things that she would never have
done under normal circumstances.
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Human
beings do things under pressure that they would normally not
do. The apostle Peter was a good man. He was there in the
courtyard
because he wanted to be near his master even as they took him
away. It was a brave thing to do. But he did not expect
someone to recognize who he was. And he did not expect that the
person would be so insistent at it. Suddenly he began to
panic. They could take him away as well. He was not ready to
suffer,
maybe even die. And so he did something that was totally out of
character, that he would never have done had he not been under
pressure. In order to protect himself, he denied that he knew
Jesus, to the point of cursing and swearing that he had never known him.
There are many pressures in the lives of young people. Anyone interested in accomplishing things later on in life will feel the pressures of high school and college--the tests, the grades, wanting to be accepted, and the like. They will feel the pressure that growth toward maturity produces. And they will do things that they would not normally do--they yell at the people they love, they get back at a friend by gossiping about them, they try chemical substances that they swore they would never use, they drink too much alcohol. Likewise, there is mental pain in the lives of all adults. They worry about their futures; they wonder about the pains that they have; they think of how they will die. Parents worry about their children, whether they have enough money, and the like; grandparents worry about their grandchildren, and would like to help but cannot because it is not their place. There is mental pain in our lives because of our lives. Mature people must understand the mental pain that causes their immature actions, and then try to deal with it as best they can. |
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THOUGHT
What is the principal result of a person
who is suffering from too much pressure?
PRAYER Good
and gracious God, there is pressure in our lives, especially the
pressures related to achieving maturity. Help us be able to
understand those pressures, and give us the grace to deal with them in
a mature manner. Be with us, we pray.
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©2007
Capuchin Province of Mid-America
Fr. Mike Scully is a member of the Capuchin Province of Mid-America |