Reflection on June 30th Gospel

There's a point in our lives when we realize that we have to make a choice about God.

Elisha was called by Elijah, Elijah perhaps foreshadowing Jesus' call.

It isn't that we shouldn't bury our dead, or that we shouldn't take the time to say goodbye to people. It's that it is so dangerous and so tempting to look back. Then we are also tempted to say "Tomorrow, tomorrow I will follow you". Tomorrow comes, and  it becomes today, and the present is always so full of things to do, things to bury, things to say goodbye to. It's like saying "Lord, I want to follow you, but before I decide to quit my bad drinking habits, I need to get drunk just one last time".

We shouldn't look back when we say yes to Christ, but it's never that easy.

Thoughts On Adoration

You have called me here. You knew the deepest, truest desire of my heart. I came thinking I was looking for one thing, and wanting this one thing, I discovered that  what I really wanted and needed was something else. In the end, I simply desired to be with you. And the thought had crossed my mind, but I dismissed making that thought a reality, because I wasn't doing a conscious and intentional effort. I told myself I could be with you wherever I wanted to, using the excuse that you're everywhere, that you're in everything, and available at any time I wanted to be with you. Now I see my selfishness, of going to "see" you, talk to you, whenever and wherever I wanted. But in my heart, my deepest desire was still to be with you, such an honesty with blind eyes. I couldn't see you sometimes, with the same-old excuse of having no time.

Thank you Lord for drawing me here. You called me, and I finally made myself available, thinking I would see your face through others. Instead, you, yourself, pure and present, came. No one else was here but you, when I was expecting a group of people. Only You showed up. You were there, standing as I entered the church, waiting patiently. Waiting for me to see you face to face.

Here I am. I know it's not wrong to see you and expect to see you through events, people, and nature, but I forget sometimes what a blessing it is to see you face to face. And talk to you. And adore you. Thank you for calling out to me, like a good friend, for listening, for being with me. For waiting until I finally came to see you.

Take Nothing with You

Luke 9, 3-23

3. He told them: “Take nothing for the journey—no walking stick, no sack, nor food, no money, no second tunic" 

A few months ago, I reflected upon this passage because it really spoke to me. I've been wanting to share it since I wrote it down on a piece of scrap paper, so finally I took the time to type it out. 

Being on a mission means taking nothing with you. 

"no walking stick" 
In my life, the walking stick or staff is something, someone to lean on. Thus, to me, leaving the walking stick behind means having nothing to lean on. In other words, it's leaving behind emotional stability. For me this is the hardest one of all, because when you are home, you don't realize how much support and stability you have. People hold you up (emotionally) and it's really easy not to notice until you leave your "crutch" home and then you realize how much emotional support was given to you. Going out into mission means that you might leave your family far away, that you might go to a place where you don't know anyone, or where you don't know many. It's humbling and it's hard to take that step because being "on our own" is challenging. Sometimes we want to put our full support on people, when really we should be able to let God entirely support us and lift us up, or at least help us walk without the need of an extra "walking stick". I'm not saying it's wrong to lean on people, but that God is calling us not to lean our entire bodies and entire selves only on people. 

"no sack" 
Our sacks might be filled with little treasures, material things, and comfort. We leave the comfort of our homes to serve... We leave the familiarity we so much love... like coffee in the afternoons, our nap time, maybe our social media life, or texting... 

"nor food" 
This is our backup plan, things that sustain us other than God. Trusting on ourselves for our own providence and sustain. 

"no money" 
In regards to money, I think money represents trusting on our own strength, our ability to receive an income. In mission, sometimes we might need to give up our income to be able to serve the Lord.

"no second tunic" 
To me this represents our future plans, the things we will cover our lives with. Not bringing it with us is trusting God will provide. God will clothe us, God will protect us, spirit and body. 

4, Living like Pilgrims

"whatever house you enter" 
It is trusting your life in community. We don't enter into the homes of those who do not welcome us or who do not welcome Christ, for example in circles that reject Him. We want to lead a community of believers, we want to "shake the dust", the bad influences, but we still "testify" with our lives. We just chose not to enter in that life style of living as if God doesn't exist. We chose to "shake off" our bad habits, and live in the life and community God is calling us to live.

Mary and Joseph foreshadowed the life of mission at Jesus' birth, knocking on people's doors, asking them to let the Messiah in. We still proclaim the good news. We still knock on people's doors, not for us, but for Christ. 

Later in the passage, Jesus tells his apostles to take up their cross daily (Lk 9, 23), but that first they must leave it all. So we have to trust in the Lord, in his providence, before we even start our way to Calvary. We cannot take up the cross if our hands are full. 

So I've come to this conclusion, which comes back to verse 3: being on mission means taking nothing with you.

When a young mind starts reflecting

 

Since I’ve been having blank spaces of free time I’ve had the opportunity to ponder about many more things than before. The problem is, I am normally too lazy of a person to write them. Here it goes...

I often look back at what I’ve done, but I am a pretty exigent person and I expect a lot from myself. I  know  it isn’t good to look back, but I have the need to evaluate myself to see whether I did the right thing with my time. I hate to realize I’ve wasted it. It is when I don’t get what I want when I realize I didn’t prepare myself well enough. Life is full of challenges, problems and failures. But is also full of victories, rewards and in some cases, happiness... and many of these things depend on the decisions you make.

Oh, it is easy as a child, you don’t need to make any decisions - oh well, maybe you have to decide what flavor of ice cream you want or if you will do the homework or not-  but those won't ruin you- even if you would choose wrong. Most of the decisions are made by your parents. 99% of the time without your consent. As a child it may feel like injustice or even as a pest, like when your parents decide you have to eat the broccoli to be healthy, but as a kid you don’t realize that THAT is a relief!!

As you grow older you discover you have to make your own decisions. And the older you get, the harder the questions in the test are going to be. Sorry, that’s life! When you think that when you’re finally through one of the stages of life, like adolescence, high school, or college  for example, you find out that life only gets harder. There are no breaks and it never gets easier, just face it. What is really depressing is to know it in your heart. When you’re about 18 (that is when most people are just out of high school), one of the big decisions in life comes: what you want to study, where you want to go, and it can even pretend to aim for the question “what are you going to do for the rest of your life?”

But you can’t know that. You can’t know what you’re going to do for the rest of your days being 18 years old. You can be conscious that the decision you make will affect your future, but you can’t decide the end of the story before it’s over. As a young immature person that you are at that age (and believe me, most people are very immature at 18) you have many expectations from the world and from life. You have hopes and dreams. You want something big and nice and something that will make you happy. Somewhere along the road they stuck into our heads that we want to be successful, but choosing the right career might not be what will make you happy or rich or successful. Yet because that’s what we’ve been told, it makes this decision ever more complicated than it should be.

There’s another thing: the world is full of lies and full of shit. If you buy it you will end up eating crap all your life: trying to find the flavor of the piece of cardboard that you’re biting on. Money doesn’t make you happy, nor do things nor do people. God makes you happy, but only if you let Him. You can experience Him through people, because He is in the hearts of those who open their hearts to Him.

If you are feeling like me, with this fierce desire to know what you are supposed to do with your life (or at least with your youth)… with this energy, this spirit of hope and ambition… and you want to go out into the world and give yourself to it, with mind and soul… and you want to grasp the world in your hands… Don’t expect the world to give you the answers you need… because the world is cruel and deceives. Put yourself in the hands of God first, that you may have the strength you need to grab a hold of the world. Make the world yours and don’t let it possess you, not that you become from the world.

If you are my age, and are able to grasp what I just wrote: Good luck, because not everybody at this age is able to understand what is coming. Not everyone is able to be conscious that what they have lived is almost nothing, and that the real life is actually ahead of them. That the problems from adolescence are nothing compared to the ones of life. You don’t get to make a drama like a teenager, or have an excuse to do it. You will have to make your own decisions now… you are your own responsibility. Prepare yourself. Be ready to live you life, to fight and choose with love. Know that you are not alone. The world is at hand. Be ready to realize that the adventure has just begun.

Written sometime last year, perhaps june?