The middle of last week, I exchanged e-mails with a friend of mine who has what must be the worst job in America.

He works for Lehman Brothers.

I hadn’t heard from him in several weeks, and given the news of the last several days, I wanted to find out how he was doing.

He wrote me back, “Greg,” he said, “if this is hell, I really want to go to heaven.”

He said he’s been working very long hours, and hasn’t been sleeping. Monday night, he stayed at the office and just slept on the couch. He said a big part of his pay is in Lehman Brothers stock, which is now worthless. There’s a good chance that he’ll be unemployed by the end of the year. He has two kids in college. And he asked me to pray for him.

That kind of story is playing out over and over and over right now. A colleague at CBS passed on to me an e-mail he received from his accountant with the headline: “During A Panic, Don’t Panic.”

Of course, you see something like that and all you want to do is just panic.

But the upheaval in the country right now isn’t just financial.

Last week, millions in Texas found themselves without power after Hurricane Ike. Homes were devastated. Thousands had to move into shelters. The pictures were incredible – boats resting on street corners, neighborhoods strewn with debris. Sewage had backed up onto the streets and mosquitoes were starting to swarm. The mayor of Galveston even warned people not to try to return home.

Suffering is a mystery as old as time itself. It is impossible to comprehend, or rationalize.

“My ways aren’t your ways,” the Lord tells the prophet Isaiah in today’s first reading.

St. Paul obviously understood that. He yearned for an end to his suffering. Writing from prison, where he faced near-certain execution, he said, “I long to depart this life for Christ, for that is far better.”

But he also knew that God may have had other plans for him and that, no matter what happened, “Christ will be magnified in my body.”

And there, I think, we find a valuable lesson that is larger than any storm, more powerful than any plunge in the world markets.

In our moment of distress, when things seem hopeless…what do we do?

We can give in to despair. We can torment ourselves with worry and fear. We can lash out or rail against the injustice of life and wonder “Why me?”

Or we can make room for something else. We can make room for God and, despite whatever hardship we’re enduring, offer the world a glimpse of grace.

“Christ,” said Paul, “will be magnified in my body.”

Whether he realized it or not, that apostle was echoing the words of the very first apostle, Mary.

At a moment of great uncertainty in her own life, that unwed pregnant teenager from a poor town gave us one of the greatest prayers in all of scripture:

“My soul magnifies the Lord.”

What a breathtaking leap: to peer into the void of your own future, to stare over the edge, and to not see danger…but to see, instead, the greatness of God. To tell yourself: out of this, God will be made even greater. And others will know it. Mary celebrated that. And so did St. Paul. Even in their most anxious and desperate moments, they let God in, and let Him work. Sometimes, it is all you can do.

The responsorial psalm today reminds us:

“The Lord is good to all
and compassionate toward all his works.
The Lord is near to all who call upon him.”

I know: it sounds so pretty in church on a Sunday morning. It is hard to remember that, though, when you’re staring at a mortgage that can’t be paid. Or when you’re standing in the middle of a rain-swept street and looking at the ragged pieces of wood that used to be your child’s bedroom.

Yet, in Texas last week, some did call upon the Lord.

Last Sunday in Galveston, 80 people showed up for mass at a cathedral that seats 2,000. It was a great testament of faith. One woman said it was just good to be there and to be able to worship during a time of disaster. The archbishop preached about hardship, and the need for patience and kindness for one another.

And then there was the story of Pedro and Maria Chavez, who fled their home and found shelter in Corpus Christi Catholic Church along with other families. There, last weekend, unable to return home, they had their youngest child, Guadalupe, baptized. “On a rainy day,” the godfather said, “there was a little blessing.”

I can’t think of a better way to “magnify the Lord” than with the baptism of a child, named in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Floodwaters had taken life; the flowing waters of baptism created new life in Christ.

The challenge for all of us is to “magnify the Lord,” even when life tries to diminish Him by diminishing us. Doing that requires faith. It demands prayer. It asks us to surrender, and to trust. It’s the same trust that led Peter to climb out of a boat in the middle of his own storm — and walk on water.

It asks us to hope, even in moments of hopelessness.

And what are we, if not people of hope?

We are people who know that the greatest story ever told didn’t end with an earthquake on Good Friday…but continued with the sunrise on Easter Sunday.

And it continues here, this Sunday, at this altar.

In a few moments, when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we will also pray that God “free us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our savior Jesus Christ.”

My prayer is that this “joyful hope” will sustain all those suffering this Sunday morning.

All who are struggling to give shelter to their children, or make a future for their families.

All those swept up by life’s storms.

In time, the tide will turn. The waters will ebb.

And in the blazing light of a new morning, God will be magnified.