Catholic Faith Space
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I came across a statistic a few days ago that said 52% of Americans report feeling lonely. I’m not sure how accurate this study was or what kinds of questions the participants were asked, but either way, it caught my attention. In a world that is so busy and filled with almost constant activity and in a time where we are so connected through the use of technology and social media, how can so many people feel alone?
No matter how many friends we have, how many people we are surrounded by, or how great our families are, we have all probably felt lonely at least one time or another. Maybe it was in high school or college and you experienced feelings of loneliness when you weren’t invited to do something. Maybe in the workplace, you felt like you couldn’t connect to any of your co-workers. Maybe it was on a random weeknight or weekend sitting at home and you felt like you didn’t belong or that people were too busy for you. If not any of those experiences, surely, you’ve been in situations where the people around you didn’t share your faith and you felt like it was you against the world. As painful as the experience of loneliness can be, it is a part of the human condition. Even Jesus experienced loneliness. In the Garden of Gethsemane and on His journey to the cross, He felt abandoned and alone during the most intense and difficult moments. And in these moments, he cried out to God the Father. In His agony, He showed us how to endure the loneliness we will experience in our own lives. Jesus suffered the ultimate loneliness and made the greatest sacrifice so that our times of loneliness could be filled by His love and presence. Jesus will not always take away our feelings of loneliness. But He will walk through them with us. He wants to comfort us and fill us up with the love that only He can give. He promises to be “with us always” (Matthew 28:20). We will feel lonely at times but we must remember that we are never truly alone. When we experience loneliness, it is the perfect time to place ourselves before Jesus and ask Him to speak into the broken and hurting places. Ask Jesus who you are to Him and ask Him to reveal His heart to you. Eucharistic adoration is a great place to listen. We are often tempted to fill the empty parts of our hearts and lives with everything but the One who we’re made for. When we feel lonely and it seems like nothing is satisfying this ache we have, we must remember the words of St. Augustine, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
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In this past weekend’s Gospel, Jesus calls his first disciples. He calls Peter, Andrew, James, and John. One line in the scripture passage says “and immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him” (Matthew 4:22). When hearing this Gospel at mass, there was one word that I was struck by: “immediately.” These disciples did not wait to follow Jesus. They heard His call and responded right away. And that’s what we are all called to do if we want to be disciples; follow Him immediately.
There is no better moment to follow Jesus than every present moment we are in. He calls each and every one of us to be His disciples and follow Him. Sometimes, we might tell ourselves that we’re not ready to fully commit. Maybe we sometimes say that we will say “yes” to following Jesus in a little while or at a later time; once we are a bit older and wiser or once we have it all figured out. We may have excuses or allow things in our lives to become barriers. We might say that we will follow Jesus once we get that job, meet certain people, travel to that specific place, or accomplish certain goals. Following Jesus is hardly ever convenient. Whenever he calls us to walk with Him more closely, we are probably living life our way and things are going as we planned. But if we love Him above everything and everyone else in our lives, we will respond and choose to follow him immediately. We will release our grip on the desires, comforts, pleasures, and priorities we are holding onto that are not of Him. We may not be called to a dramatic change where we drop everything we are doing and move from where we currently are to a totally different life. But we are all called to drop certain nets in our lives immediately to choose Jesus and to follow Him more closely. We all have times when we know Jesus is calling us to do something and we have to decide if we are going to take those opportunities to do what He is calling us to in those moments. May we all follow the example of those first disciples. My prayer for each and every single one of us is that we would listen to the ways Jesus is calling us to follow Him more closely and that we would respond without hesitation, choosing to walk with Him immediately. Expectations. We all have them. Different aspects of our daily lives naturally have various expectations set up for us. These include expectations about our jobs, our accomplishments, our behaviors, and the overall way we live our lives. Expectations are not necessarily bad. They often help us set standards and allow us to think about the choices we should make. But if we truly trust God, we must not allow expectations to rule our lives.
To trust in God means more than to simply believe in His existence. It means to fully give ourselves to Him. When we trust God completely, we will not obsess about our future plans or worry about what our lives may entail next month, next year, or five years from now. Our society is continually presenting us with expectations about what we need to accomplish, where we need to go, what items we need to have, and how we should live. But ultimately, God is in control and He is the only one who knows how our lives will look. We must look to Him, and not the world, for guidance on how to live. To think that we can fully plan our lives and decide what is or isn’t going to happen is of no use. We often have ideas of how we think our lives should be. Or, other people have expectations of what our lives should look like. But when we have these ideas or allow the opinions of others to impact us, this sets us up for disappointment and doubt in the goodness and providence of God. When we stop setting certain expectations for our lives, we are able to more fully trust that God provides us with what we need. Our expectations and desires for certain things can cloud our vision of God working in our lives. And when we fail to see how God is working in our lives, we can lose our trust in Him and question if He is really with us. When it comes to living each day, we must open our hands to release any expectations we are clinging to. We must keep our hands open, ready to receive whatever may come: the gifts God gives us, the suffering He allows, the joys, and challenges. Trust God completely. He knows what you need, better than anyone else. Over the weekend, I worked a TEC (Together Encountering Christ) retreat. As usual, it was a refreshing experience, working amongst other team members who have a desire to share Jesus with others and grow deeper in their faith. In his homily at the closing mass on Sunday, the priest, Father Joel, made a statement that stood out to me. He said, “don’t let anyone steal the joy of the Gospel from you.” Leaving a retreat and going back to “normal” life, this is a reminder that is so important.
Coming home from retreats can, oftentimes, be difficult. You go from being in a Christ-centered environment with a community of like-minded individuals to going back into your regular, ordinary routine. We all have co-workers, friends, classmates, or family members, who either grew up Catholic and don’t want to hear about it anymore, went to Catholic school or religious education for years and believe they know everything there is to know, or have stopped practicing the faith for various reasons. When we interact with those who have not had the same kinds of faith experiences as us, it can be hard to keep the fire in our hearts alive. At times, it feels like some of the people around us are trying to diminish the joy of the Gospel and following Jesus. People can often make us feel many different ways about the faith we have and about the truth we believe in. If you actively practice your faith, it is likely that you’ve felt lonely, out of place, or different at one time or another. Maybe you’ve felt like others around you have tried to diminish your faith or dismissed your encounters with Christ. But we cannot give in to the temptations to become disheartened and to hide our faith. There is a great deal of joy in knowing the Gospel and truths of our faith and in following Jesus. If you’ve had a personal encounter with Him at any point, you know this. You know that living a life of faith and having a relationship with Christ is worth it. Many times, the people we interact with and the rest of the world will not understand our experiences or our faith. In fact, they will probably question your faith, shut you down, dismiss you,, or ridicule you. But Jesus told us they would. Whenever you experience Christ in a real and powerful way, let those experiences permeate throughout your life. Everyone will not understand and it will be hard to persevere. But keep striving to live out your faith and never let anyone steal the joy of the Gospel from you. Last Friday, the Church celebrated the Feast of the Holy Family. Reflecting and meditating on the Holy Family, we must look to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as an example. The Holy Family provides us with inspiration and encouragement, and serves as a model of holiness. However, looking around at the world around us, it’s easy to see that the family is under attack in our society. It’s no surprise that something so beautiful that comes from God is hated by our culture. As Catholics and Christians, we must never stop standing up for the gift of the family and sharing its importance.
Satan hates the family and we can see this all around us. Bodies of government, politicians, and others are trying to redefine marriage by believing that a union between two people of the same gender is marriage. The importance of a mother and father in a child’s life and the unique and irreplaceable elements that a mom and a dad provide are being ignored, as we see frequent adoption by same-sex couples. We see couples living together before entering into sacramental marriage, living as though they are already married. Then there is contraception. Used far and wide, it promotes promiscuity, objectification, self-gratification, abuse, and is a way for people to reject God’s plan and the gift of life. This intrinsic evil is where abortion comes in. The acceptance of contraception is what has led to the widespread acceptance of ending the life of a baby in the womb. All of these attacks on the family are just a few examples of how Satan is working to break down the family and create dysfunction and confusion. Our family is what forms us for much of our lives. It is in our families that we learn how to speak and listen and how to forgive. We learn about what is true and good. In the family, we learn what love is, because it is where we first receive love. Our characters are developed and we discover our values. Families are not without challenges and difficulties, but through each of our family members and the different gifts and qualities they bring, we are able to grow and deepen our faith and we are led closer to Jesus. The gift of family is truly one of the greatest blessings we are given by God to help us on the journey. The many attempts to destroy the family cannot be condoned. As people of faith, we cannot just go with the flow and pretend that the breakdown of family is harmless or trivial. Each one of us, part of a family, needs to work to grow in faithfulness and love, just as Jesus, Mary, and Joseph modeled. May we all, in our families, grow in holiness each day and show the world the beauty and goodness of family. |
AuthorStriving to share hope, joy, God's love, and all of the good stuff, one blog post at a time. Categories |
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