“Good Training”
When I was in the US military as a young man, if there was a dirty or unpleasant job to be done and I was elected to do it there was always a word of encouragement. It will be ” good training”. I wasn’t sure what it would be training for but it was all “good training”.
quaI was about 22 years-old and didn’t for a moment believe anyone who said this. There was a fellow soldier who had entered the Army at 16 from the great state of Tennessee. He was now 17 years-old and was too young to drink beer at the enlisted men’s club. He confessed that he grew up on moonshine. Because he could not purchase alcohol he drank Aqua Velva. Aqua Velva is a men’s after shave lotion sold in the United States. To this day I cannot stand the look or smell of it.
The colonel in charge of my headquarters company called me into his office and you guessed it he had some “good training” for me. Turns out the young man in question got drunk over the weekend and was vomiting and in really rough shape. When my colonel was a young lieutenant, he had one of his enlisted men die and he had to write the letter to the man’s family. He was not going to let that happen again. My good training was to stay awake all night and make sure my 17-year-old trooper did not choke to death. At the present moment he was helpless. I was miserable.
Well, the young man and I both survived. I did learn a lesson in helping others and taking care of the people around you that God has put there for me to care about and for. So really it was good training for me.
Saint Paul gives us the reason for his “good training “I do not boast of preaching the gospel, since it is a duty which has been laid on me; I should be punished if I did not preach it! If I had chosen this work myself, I might have been paid for it, but as I have not, it is a responsibility which has been put into my hands. Do you know what my reward is? It is this: in my preaching, to be able to offer the Good News free, and not insist on the rights which the gospel gives me.
Saint John Chrysostom the saint whose feast day is today was also in training. He was not only a Doctor of the Church but gave very down to earth sermons that inspired the faithful of the day. Just like Saint Paul and Saint John we are all in training to run the race to win the next day. Our race today might be over, but we have another race tomorrow that we are in training to win. We all are in training till we reach Heaven.
Each one of us, however, has been given his own share of grace, given as Christ allotted it. We are given tools by our Baptism to train and win our race every day. Unlike our fellow Protestant brothers and sisters, we can’t accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior and stop. We are in a new race every day and we are in that race to win.
Blessing to all of us in “good training.”
God Love You Always
Bob Burford
PS: Please Pray for Cancer victims and their caregivers. Pray for the conversion of Russia and the salvation of the Ukrainian and Russian people and their soldiers. Pray for the Holy Land. Pray for peace!
