Know - Grow - Go

Sometimes, like Lazarus, the Lord leaves us in the tomb for His own mysterious reasons. Rather than just lifting us out of our darkness, God asks us to remain and delays answering our pleas because Heaven’s timeline is different from ours.

In these times, there are things we can do to weather the storm: keep your eyes on the Lord, take solace in scripture, and lean on those who love you. When we're waiting in the tomb for God to act, we don't have to wait alone.

By giving God the glory and thanking him in good times and in bad, we humble ourselves and recognize that are not in charge. No matter what befalls us or the sins we commit, God is always there wanting to restore our sight and inviting us to reconcile with him. And, by exposing the darkness of sin in our lives, the light in each of us becomes more visible to those around us.

Our ultimate thirst and yearning is for God, who wants to pour his love into our hearts. Lent is a time to ask what we are filling our hearts with and how we are pouring ourselves out for others. Are we filling our hearts with murky, dirt-laden water; with soft drinks that are best enjoyed sparingly; or clear, pure water that begets more life when we share it? Jesus is the source of this life-giving water. May we drink deeply of his love and pour it out to others.

While the Sacrament of Reconciliation (a.k.a., Confession) is one of Fr. Bill's favorites, that's not the case for most people. Fr. Bill walks through some of the questions and fears surrounding this healing sacrament to explain its importance and show how we can experience a Transfiguration through it.

Lent is a time to retune the ears of our heart. That’s really the point of our fasting, prayer, and sacrifice: they’re invitations to weaken the ego with its incessant demands, to refocus our gaze back to God, and to hear Him say once more to us, “You are my beloved child. I know your heart. I know what’s best for you. I have plans for you. Come back to Me."

You don’t have to have your act together. You don’t need to hide anything. You don’t need to pretend your life is something that it’s not. Come as you are, warts and all. Find one thing to do this Lent and let God have your attention, even if it's just for 10 minutes a day. You might be surprised by what He says.

Lent gives us a special time to be keenly aware of our sins and our own selfishness. Jesus' challenge in the Gospel is not to stop doing righteous deeds or prayer altogether, but to do them for the good of others and the glory of God regardless if they will be seen or not by others. As you begin your Lenten journey and practice, measure it against the standard of how it will be good for others, not just yourself.

Living the commandment to love our enemies is probably the hardest thing we can do. Simply put, we cannot do this without the supernatural grace of God. Remember that "love" is not the same as “like.” Loving someone is willing good for the other, while liking someone is a much more subjective thing. You don’t have to like everyone, but you must love them.

This commandment is not a suggestion. It’s just the hardest thing to do. So, let us pray for the supernatural grace to love our enemies. Period.

The vocation to marriage calls an individual to imitate God’s love by dedicating oneself to service for their spouse and to be open to the children conceived from their love. In this covenant of love, husbands and wives strive to live out the promise to love as God loves in a particular way, by giving of each other without condition. Through the highs and lows, the ecstasies and crucibles of marriage, each spouse’s vocation is to help the other become more of what God desires for them.

Humility is knowing who we are as God has created us; knowing our true place in life, not more and not less. We are meant to recognize our God-given talents and tend those gifts to the best of our ability, not for the sake of ourselves but for God and others. To be ultimately motivated for our own sake is arrogance, empty, and vain. Our struggle is that we are prone to slip into the two extremes: “I’m pond scum” and “not worthy to be alive” or “I am the greatest” and “I know more about things than anyone else.” A truly faithful, humble life is one that gives ourselves away, to forget out our narcissistic ideations, and simply serve others without ulterior motives.

In the end, the Beatitudes are really about God’s love for us, hidden in the cross; God waiting for us in the difficult places. It’s not easy to trust that, to surrender to that. If you haven't yet, pray the Surrender Novena; there's strength and courage in that prayer, a peace that the world cannot give. All of us have those hard places in our life, places that are out of control, ugly, sad, hurting; places that we wish were different. Those places aren’t a barrier to God’s love. Because of what Jesus has done, God now waits for us there.