How Can We Know the Way?

A reflection on John 14:1-12

“Thomas said to him, “Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way and the truth and the life…” ~John 14: 5-6

Sometimes we feel lost. Life has its ups and downs, its twists and turns and we aren’t always sure of how everything is working out or where exactly we are at on the journey.

As Christians, our first prerogative, our main goal & aim, is to get to Heaven. Sometimes we get bogged down with earthly cares and worries and lose sight of the goal. Sometimes we have our eyes fixed on that goal, but feel our own weakness and sinfulness that deters us from that path to eternal life that we strive to remain on. We ask questions and seek answers to life’s most difficult and probing questions. We seek meaning, purpose, and direction in our lives. And Jesus tells us where we can find all of the answers - He IS the answer. He tells us that He IS the way, the truth, and the life. If we seek Him, and live our lives centered around Him, we are on ‘the way’, we have ‘the truth’, and we have ‘the life’, we have Jesus. We have everything.

Knowing this, we often still question things that life throws at us, wondering if we are always making the right decisions, if we are truly doing the will of God and not simply our own. I am reminded of a song by a Catholic artist Matthew Baute. There is a line in one of his songs where it is said (as if Jesus if speaking): “If your heart longs to please Me, you’ll be on the right road.”

So the question is: Whom do we long to please?

To whom do we expend the most energy trying to please? Is it our spouse? Our kids? Our boss? Ourselves? Sure, it is good to please our spouse, our kids, our boss, etc. but who do we first long to please? If our heart is first fixed on God and on growing in love for Him and knowledge of His unfathomably deep love for us, then everything else will fall into place; because then all of our actions will be motivated by love for God - not for ourselves or for another person - and all of these other people in our lives will benefit from our union with God and receive God’s love through us. In this, we can then rest in the knowledge that we are ‘on the right road’. So as we go through this week - and every day of our lives - let us remind ourselves to seek Jesus first in ALL things, knowing that He is all we need and is our way to life… our way to ABUNDANT life in this world, and in the eternal life to come.

“...I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be.” ~John 14:3


*Photo Credit: http://melissapagedeutsch.com/paths/

So.... how about that Lenten season?

This is definitely the most ‘off-the-cuff’ blog post that I’ve published thus far… but I sense the need to write, particularly about Lent and where we are at about a third of the way through, having flown through the two-and-a-half weeks that have already passed since Ash Wednesday.

I was asked by someone last week: ‘How is your lent going?’ To which I replied: ‘Pretty good. Yeah, it’s going well.’ Which was true, but upon reflecting a bit more on this question as the next few days went by, I realized that my Lent is going okay, but that I’m really not getting as much out of it as I want to, or probably should. This unexpected reflection led me to take a step back and re-evaluate my Lenten commitments (or lack thereof) and really contemplate what I am doing, what I should be doing, and how I can get more out of this Lenten season. I decided that it’s never too late to make a change; and that just because Lent is well underway already, does not mean that I can’t commit myself to something more, something new, etc. to make the most out of the remaining weeks in this holy season.

To be honest, Lent is hard for me. I used to love Lent and the time of sacrifice, prayer, & depth… it used to be something that I actually looked forward to. However, after having experienced various sufferings and sacrifices that caused me to feel as if my whole life had been Lent for years on end, entering into a season of extra sacrifice and mortification has lost some of the grandeur it once had for me. So for the past few years, I’ve had a difficult time anticipating this season, preparing for it, and fully entering into it. One of the changes I’ve decided to make at this one-third of the way through point, is to give up Facebook for the remainder of Lent. I realized that the time I was spending perusing through it was taking away from time for prayer, or even just constructive time taking care of whatever else in life needs attention. I also made some new commitments concerning my daily prayer, to try and cultivate a more consistent and committed prayer life.

What about you? How is your Lent going? What are you doing well, or what do you need to change or recommit to in order to get more out of this holy season? Remember that it’s never too late to change and never too late to begin again. Don’t settle for thinking that you’ve already blown it and maybe next year will be better. We are not guaranteed next year, but we ARE guaranteed the present moment. We are guaranteed right now. What comes to mind right now that Jesus is calling you to do in order to go deeper this Lent?

Awareness of the devil's diversions

A Lenten reflection on temptation...

First Sunday of Lent's Gospel: Matthew 4:1-11 - Jesus is tempted in the desert

“Thus, Pope Francis observed, ‘we who want to follow Jesus, and who by our baptism have taken to the Lord’s path, must be well aware of this truth: we too are tempted, we too are objects of the demon’s attacks,’ for ‘the spirit of evil does not want us to become holy, it does not want us to bear witness to Christ, it does not want us to be disciples of Christ.’” ­–excerpt from Magnificat, March 2017; 'Day by Day' reflection for Sunday, March 5th

So often we lose sight of the devil’s main objective: to keep us from holiness; to keep us from Jesus. We go through our lives, our days, and when little things come up to divert our attention away from God or that deter us from a time of prayer, we don’t see it as a big deal; we don’t see it as a serious temptation. No matter how small it may be, even though it may not even be outright sinful, it IS a big deal. Why? Because the devil is accomplishing his one, his only, main goal – to keep us from growing in holiness; to keep us from life with Jesus Christ! There are many sins, temptations, neglects, and omissions that keep us from God, and many things that the devil uses to accomplish his goal. But often, for those of us who already avoid obvious and/or serious sin and temptation, the devil uses these subtle tactics to tempt us, to distract us, using even good things and good intentions to prevent us from spending time with Jesus, from keeping our focus on Him.

Above all, we need to cultivate this relationship with Christ; to keep our prayer time, to keep our focus on Him. If we take this time and keep this focus, sin will naturally uproot itself from our lives; because, the more time we spend with God and keep our focus on Him, the more we will grow in holiness – which means that sin will dissipate. In this, we defeat the evil one in the way most needed: we don’t allow him to pull us away from Jesus. We must be vigilant in fighting for our life with Christ so as to gain eternal life and defeat Satan. We need to watch for the little, subtle, hidden, sudden ways that the devil uses to try and make us fumble our time and our focus; for these ‘little’ things accomplish the evil one’s big goal: to keep us from growing in holiness. Let us not give in! Let us not let him win! We need to recognize these ‘little’ distractions and diversions and make a BIG difference in our lives by conquering them in order to grow with Christ, and become holy as He is holy.

It can be difficult to recognize the ways that the devil works sometimes… especially when we live in the world and are subject to all kinds of interruptions and changes that we often can’t help or control. But, there are things that we can control. Sometimes, I think the main problem is that many of us have such an incredibly hard time saying ‘no’. We have this intense desire to make everyone happy, to keep the peace, to be attentive and self-giving… sometimes to a fault. So when things come up, and we think ‘oh, I was planning on going to adoration’ or ‘I was planning to sit home & pray’, etc., ‘but I’ll just fit it in later’… how many times – honestly – do we not have time later, or don’t make the time later, or are too tired later and just fall asleep. Whatever. It happens all. the. time. And we proceed to think ‘oh well, it’s not a big deal, it’s just one day’, but the same thing happens again tomorrow or later in the week, etc. And because it is seemingly a little thing, we just keep plugging along, not realizing the long term effects on our spiritual journey.

Now, this is definitely NOT to say we should beat ourselves up, be all scrupulous and think we can’t let our plans be changed, or our prayer time be exchanged at times to assist someone in need, etc. We need to be discerning and sometimes the Lord needs us to move at a time when we don’t expect it and this is good! And it also doesn’t mean that when we do fall into these traps that we should spend all of our time lamenting over our weakness and fickleness and think we’ve failed. We are human, we will fall, we will make mistakes; and though I, personally, have this great resolve to keep attentive to the little things that the devil whispers to put me in a place of laziness, procrastination, etc. in my spiritual life, I will not always succeed. I honestly will probably falter and stumble and fumble at least 3 or 4 times before this first week of Lent is finished! The point is, that we just need to be aware of the ways that the devil tries to keep us from time with God and growth in holiness so that we can overcome them, little by little, and keep on the path of growing in holiness and defeat the demon's attacks. As Saint (Mother) Teresa is famous for saying: God doesn’t call us to be successful, He calls us to be faithful. We might not always be successful in recognizing and overcoming these diversions, but if we stay faithful, and keep trying, and keep getting up after we fall, we will fulfill the call of God in our lives to be faithful and we will grow in holiness!

God bless you all and have a beautiful, life-changing, holiness-growing Lenten season! 

Serving God while I wait… What am I waiting for exactly?

Times and seasons of darkness or trial, or even just plain spiritual dryness, inevitably come into our lives. There are many songs, books, and circulating quotes of encouragement on social media that motivate us to serve God while we wait, or praise Him in the storm, or focus on the rainbow that comes after the rain, etc… whatever suits your fancy :-) But what exactly is it that we are waiting for? In our hearts and in our minds is the misconceived notion that we are waiting for God to do something; that we are just trying to get along until He shows up, striving as best as we can, continuing to serve Him, but mostly feeling as if we are failing or just want to give up. Essentially, we are waiting for God to come back to us. Um, excuse me? This is NOT okay! God never leaves, and it takes someone to leave in order for them to come back. What are we thinking? This is a problem!

This is a problem because we are believing a lie. Now, I am definitely not saying that those encouraging quotes, words, and songs are lying to us – not at all! They are true words of hope and encouragement. But it’s the way that we think about this ‘waiting’ that can be a problem if we don't have the right perspective. When we are in these times of difficulty or dryness, we tend to think of our ‘waiting on God’ as some sort of passive state in our life, that we don't have much to give because we're waiting on God to give us whatever we are longing for and we feel empty. We believe that this is a stagnant time. That is the problem. Waiting is far from passive. God is very much active at these times in our life. There is a purpose and meaning to each trial, experience, or spiritual season that we go through. We know this, and (if you are anything like me), somehow it still doesn't bring much comfort. We know intellectually that God is permitting or ordaining whatever we are experiencing for a reason, but we can’t see or understand it, so we get mad. We don’t like it. We want it to change because we don’t comprehend it. We spiritually pout. Spiritually sitting in a corner with our arms crossed waiting for God to come do something. Thus, even though we know He has a plan for what we are going through, our hearts feel lost and we still don’t feel motivated by the thought. This feeling we know all too well (of wanting to roll our eyes when we’re told ‘God has a plan in this for you’ and we know it, but it doesn’t help, so we don’t want to hear it) is because we still feel like this perceived waiting state that we are in is passive, but it is not! God is always actively working, moving, and breathing life into us. Always. Yes, always.

Therefore, we have to think not about the waiting (because it’s really not waiting in the way we think it is), but on the acting that God is doing in us. If we focus on waiting, we tend to become very susceptible to falling into laziness, thinking, "I'm just waiting on God to show up and trying to do my best until He gets here, until He changes something in my life." (Not that I know this from personal experience or anything….) But herein lies the problem! God has already shown up! He's already here; He's already living, breathing, and working in us! Just because we don't perceive it doesn't mean that there is not great work being accomplished. When someone is in surgery, there is much good being done to bring healing to the body… But while that person is unconscious, he's clearly not aware of it! He doesn’t know what’s happening as it’s happening, but he trusts that what is happening is for his good; knowing it is for his good.

I've learned and decided (quite recently) that in my own spiritual season of "waiting", I'm no longer focusing on waiting. I'm focusing on loving my God no matter where He has me, no matter how I feel about it, no matter whether I want it or not. Because in the end, I want what He wants. If He is working in me, who am I to argue about how He’s working? So what if He wants to work in silence, hiddenness, and imperceptibility? We are not really waiting for anything anyway, because God is constantly doing something for us. We have this sense and this desire as if we're waiting for God to grant some special grace, manifest His presence, or offer some other form of consolation. If we are sitting around waiting for this, we aren’t focused on the relationship with Him. We are waiting on the gifts, when the Giver is in our midst. And the thing is, He’s still giving gifts! But they are deeper, more meaningful, more conducive to uniting our hearts to His. We don’t always perceive what happens in the depths, but it is there where greatness dwells.

Therefore our focus needs to be – in all circumstances: “Lord, how am I being called to love You right now? How can I receive Your love in this time and grow in my relationship with You?” Love is not static… (true love, that is). It is always moving, changing, growing… so too, is (and should be) our love for God. It is always growing and moving and changing within us. Changing us. Therefore, should we be surprised when we go through seasons that cause our love to grow or change? Perhaps our prayer is going to (or needs to) take a different shape and form during various times in our life – more silence and less vocal prayer, or vice versa, etc.; not because what we were doing before wasn't good enough, or was better than what we're doing now, but that God is calling us to grow in a different way that requires us to surrender our own ideas and goals of what prayer looks like, or what service looks like. If He’s moving you, be open to what He wants. He wants us to let Him move us. Be moved!

So to summarize, I say: no more waiting! God is acting - however imperceptible it is – and it is changing our lives. Focus on how He is calling us to love Him and how to grow in the relationship we have with Him, regardless of the spiritual season we are in. There is life and purpose in all seasons. Sit with Jesus and let Him love you wherever you are, and let His love change you and draw you to Himself. Focus not on what you think you're waiting for, but on the relationship with Him. For if God is always here, working and moving within us (and He is), remember: we are never really waiting. 



*Photo source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/75571860@N06/13113325165