LOIS HARR writes:

Becoming a Lasallian over the past 19 plus years, I think I’ve grown to understand and believe what Br. John Johnston shared a few years before he died:

™Lasallians engaged in higher education are uniquely situated to help young people liberate themselves from all that holds them back from being the persons God wants them to be, to help them develop their God-given talents, to help them become persons–whatever their religious faith–committed to building a world where people can live as sons and daughters of God and as brothers and sisters.∫     Br. John Johnston, FSC  Former Superior General of the Brothers from 1986 – 2000.

Brother John’s words have resonated deeply for me through the years I’ve been a campus minister – seeing our students grow and develop through service projects, retreats, classes, sacramental preparation, social action, LOVE trips — and more great conversations than I can count.

I find great inspiration and comfort in this verse from the letter to the Hebrews: ™Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.∫  Just the other day in class we were discussing faith and how if we were absolutely positively beyond a shadow of a doubt  sure of something, that might not really be faith.  It would be more like science, like physics or gravity and such.

Years ago, Mehnaz Afridi invited me to go on a Jewish/Christian/Muslim interfaith retreat.  In our final reflection, one of the leaders, an observant Jewish man, shared that he had gladly lived his life as such.  But he was perfectly content to stand before God and find out that he had been wrong.  I was overwhelmed because I identified so intensely with his words. That to me was an ultimate expression of faith – believing that there is a good and beneficent  God who, in the end, will accept our faithful, faith-filled  effort.