We As you many recall, my friends, last June 29th, just a little over a month ago, Pope Benedict proclaimed a year to honor, understand, and appreciate the biblical writings and the life of St. Paul.

And this commemorative year is to extend to next June 29 in 2009, when we will once again mark the feast of Saints peter and Paul.

Today’s second reading, St. Paul writing to the Romans, gives us tremendous hope amid some extraordinary odds that face us even in today’s world, let alone what was happening to people in Paul’s time.

Paul talks about anguish, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril and the sword.

Anguish - another word for it is anxiety, or worry. That’s a pretty common experience for just about everybody.

We sure do invest a lot of time and energy fussing about what bad things might happen, instead of reassuring ourselves that God and His angels will be there for us if and when they do. That’s why the prayer after the Our Father here at Mass asks God to “Deliver us from all anxiety, - from all needless worry and harm.”

Distress - oh boy! A whole forest of trees has been cut down to make the paper to print the vast number of books out there, just to help people deal with the daily stresses at home, at work, or in the neighborhood.

And since 1991, when Magnify first started, I sometimes think I’ve interviewed most of these books’ authors.

So it’s an ongoing experience of life, and some argue that it’s getting more intense as technology influences our standard of living all the more.

Others argue this increased stress may be the cause of the obesity epidemic in America today. Cyber bullying on the internet is a big stressor that kids are facing today, just for an example.

Persecution - oh, it’s still out there.

The Chaldean Christians in Iraq were not able to attend the World Youth Gathering the Pope just had in Sydney, Australia.

Tribalism is still very strong in Africa and Pakistan, and that puts a lot of missionaries in danger.

Whenever and wherever the Church has to go up against the prevailing government for the sake of human rights and social justice, there’s a very good probability that persecution will follow.

This has been true throughout history.

Famine - Hunger is still a big problem around the world - usually in poverty pockets. Crops fail, or people just don’t have the skills to grow foodstuffs in sufficient supply. And we hear about the numbers of children who go to sleep every night starving.

Thank God there are groups out there, like Food for the Poor, who are striving to alleviate this condition.

Nakedness - in today’s world this translates into the loss of a job and a person’s ability to support oneself and one’s family. It’s so humiliating. It brings people to their knees.

Thank God we have programs like Erie’s Inter-Church Ministries Voucher System, where people in real honest need can come to member Churches and receive a voucher redeemable at participating grocery stores, gas stations, motels, etc. And thank God for the generous people in the member congregations who support the Voucher Program. And yes, St. Luke’s is one of those supporters through our Good Samaritan envelopes.

Peril - the people out in Los Angeles know a lot about this with their earthquake last week, and the wild forest fires that have plagued the state all through July.

Again, thank God for good people from all over the world who have brought good resources of time, talent, and tools to the rescue.

Anytime we feel that the forces of nature appear to be beyond our control, we feel imperiled. Hurricane and severe storm victims live through this first hand.

And finally, St. Paul talks about the sword which in today’s world translates into terrorism.

It is still out there. All we have to do is heed the reports coming out of Afghanistan that the Taliban is regaining its strength.  That alone should raise our alert levels.

But again, we’ve learned a lot since 911 in how to detect and deal with these threats, and while the threats remain real, God has enabled us to be better prepared to fight this cowardly evil.

So throughout all these harsh realities in the world in which we live, St. Paul insists that nothing can separate us from the loving care God has for us.

I hope that in just the expressions of thanks to God that I noted in elaborating on what St. Paul cited as the harsh realities of life, I hope that we can see the evidence of the Lord’s abiding care for us, after all.

And that’s the point St. Paul is trying to make: that “nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.”

So, Thank you.