Happy New Year!
During 2020, the over-zealous introvert that I am took advantage of the curfews and stay at home orders; I have completed a stack of books, along with the occasional cup of coffee or glass of wine. My list of books ranged from St. Augustine to a McDonald’s franchisee who writes of keeping his Catholic-minded principles in today’s business world. This businessman, by the name of John Abbate, wrote in Invest Yourself, that “the true beauty of the Catholic faith can be fully realized only when we utilize our intellect to acquire knowledge to grow in our faith” (5). This is what motivates me every time I select a book, video, podcast, whatever it is that can help to fully realize my Catholic faith. As I have continued my own endeavor to strengthen my relationship with God, I have realized that the more we seek to find God, the more we actually find ourselves. I believe there is a confidence that comes with knowing and truly believing that I am a child of God, and that God created me specifically to be the unique individual that I am. And He has done the exact same for each of you.
As I continue to learn about my Catholic faith and build on the foundation of being a member of God’s church, I have found myself going places and doing things that I once would have said were totally out of my comfort zone. But, the more we find ourselves and the more we open ourselves up to God, the more we can see how He uses us for His divine plans.
2020 left us with a myriad of emotions: from fear to loss, from frustration to disappointment, but also wisdom, hope and perhaps even a deeper amount of faith. For me, 2020 has taught me a lot of hard lessons, which also helped me gain a deeper insight into life in general; for example, finding new ways to console friends or family when being physically present is not an option; or directing me to look to those great saints who have come before us, like St. John Paul II, who have faced numerous hardships themselves. and how they placed total trust in God to help them face their trials.
So, as 2020 has come to a conclusion, it is imperative that we take what this historical year has taught us, and move forward determined to not live with the same tribulations in 2021. The wounds of our world are not going to be mended simply by the turning of the calendar, they can only be reconciled if we turn back to the ultimate healer.
For my long New Year’s weekend this year I did something that was (wait for it) totally out of my comfort zone. Two of my friends and I went to a Catholic young adult conference. Now, while the vocal outbursts and charismatic worship (cue the grown man on the floor rocking back and forth in the fetal position) was an overwhelmingly new experience for me, there was a profound feeling in knowing that all of these individuals, from thirty-one different states even, came together because we all have a desire to seek Jesus. Even further, as young adults, each of us there recognized how our generation and our pleasure-seeking culture today is losing sight of Jesus, even just faith in general, and we are not okay with that. St. John Paul II recognized this issue long before we did when he said that “you are right to be disappointed with hollow entertainment and passing fads, and with aiming at too little in life” (Evert 93). This conference was entitled Empower because it set out to equip us to bring this world back to God.
As one of the leaders said, “If I love the cinnamon roll I had for breakfast, I’m going to tell people about it so they can enjoy it too. The same should go for Jesus.”
I sat there listening to that message and I asked myself why I do not tell others about loving Jesus as much as loving a cinnamon roll, and the main reason I came up with was fear. Fear of what others will think of me “preaching” about my faith. And then I remembered this breakthrough (it was for me at least) conclusion I reached recently: I should not be concerned about what total strangers or people that will not be a part of my life in five years think of me. I should only be concerned about what God thinks of me, because someday I am going to be answering to Him, not to the people I have wasted my time trying to appease and conform to.
One of the best speakers at the conference (at least in my opinion) said that “Jesus is the longest relationship we will have in our lives.” As that statement sank in, I realized that I had a lot of work to do with that relationship. Which is the reason this speaker, whose name is Noah, was speaking on discipleship. He shared with us the three foundations of discipleship: lifestyle, death and love. Lifestyle because he says it is your life, not your knowledge that will transform those around you, death because Jesus said we need to take up our respective crosses and follow Him, which is essentially dying to ourselves (or our preferences), and finally, love, because all things must be done in love. But he also said that in order to accomplish all of this, we must first be in love with the one who first loved us. So, am I willing to risk a little awkwardness in an encounter with someone else to express how much the love of Jesus means in my life? Are you?
To be honest, I was a little apprehensive about just asking my friends to go to this conference with me because I did not want them to think I was some uber-religious fanatic; but I eventually mustered up the courage and I feel that our friendship grew stronger over that weekend. We really opened ourselves up and let Jesus enter into our relationship; we had real conversations that went deeper than our usual catching up conversations of work and social activities. It reminded me that when you open yourself up to allowing God into your life and letting Him direct you for His purposes, great things can happen. Maybe I did not have some mind-blowing breakthrough moment at the conference, but it was worth going because my friends each had a private experience that was meaningful to them, and they were grateful I had asked them to go.
So, here is a challenge for you, and for myself too, that we will go out and take the opportunities that are presented to us to reject the pleasure-seeking, morally inept “norms” that we are surrounded by and proclaim Jesus back into our world. Because, as they told us at the conference, when the church fails, the world fails.
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