“God Doesn’t Want Me to Give Up Wine for Lent”

It was a gloomy day in the beginning of Lent and my husband was away for work. A friend was dropping off our two little girls at home. She walked into a crisis, as one of our kids had just been bit by the dog they were teasing. I cleaned it up and rushed out to pick up our two oldest from their practices. With all six children in tow, we headed home to do all the evening things. I ran into Rite Aid to grab butterfly bandages, liquid stitch and wine. While I had given up wine for Lent, we were just a few days in. I had reached my limit of what I could handle and made an excuse to grab some.  To my surprise, they didn’t have a single item that I went in for. I returned to the van to screaming children; for one reason or another, everyone was crying except for my teenagers. With the rain hammering the windshield, I said to God, “You gave me these children. You said you wouldn’t give me anything I couldn’t handle. I could really use some help.” I pulled into my driveway and my phone dinged. It was my friend. She texted, “I am at the store, can I get you butterfly bandages, liquid stitch or some wine?” I responded, “Yes to all of the above!” Then, I text my husband, “God doesn’t want me to give up wine for Lent”, seeing it as an answered prayer. Hahaha

You see, I didn’t prepare myself at all for Lent. I was running here and there and didn’t take time to ask the Lord to lead me in this discernment. Ash Wednesday came and I just said. “I guess I’ll just give up wine.” I have learned my lesson and I don’t think I’ve given up wine since. In the weeks leading up to Lent I ask the Lord to show me how He wants me to grow. I ask Him to show me where I am to give alms, what type of fasting I should do and how to grow in prayer? One year, I had the idea for our family to make sandwhiches for the homeless downtown. There are eight of us and we’d make ten sandwhiches each, saying a Hail Mary with each sandwhich for the recipient. I thought this was a solid plan, but God spoke to me and pointed me in another direction. One of our children had been bringing a couple of kids home from school, from time to time. God said to me, “Feed them”. I was like, “That’s great and all, I can still do that, but I can do these sandwiches, too.” God redirected me again and told me to just feed them. Irritated and feeling like I wasn’t doing enough, I agreed because I have learned to listen.

So, I fed the them. After school I’d make them food and talk to them about their day. I made sure to have snacks they liked if I knew they were coming over. As I started to build a relationship with them, I learned things about them and their families. To honor their privacy, I will just say that their needs were not being met at home and they had been neglected in more ways than one. They felt cared for in our home, just having someone there to make sure they ate and someone asking about their day. These little acts changed their lives, which, at the time, we had no idea. The teens asked our child to teach them how to pray. One started going to church with us and the other started going to church somewhere else, even bringing their family along. Sharing God’s love with them enkindled a fire deep within to seek the Lord. They transformed before our eyes and it was beautiful for us to witness.

I’m not sure how the Lord wants me grow this year, but I am excited to start the journey. Excited for Lent?! Yes, I have come to really love this time of year. Maybe I am more committed with reminders all around, but this is definitely a time of struggle and welcomed growth. Go to the Lord, tell Him you only want to do His will and ask Him to lead you in this journey ahead. Who knows, maybe He doesn’t want you give up wine for Lent after all. God bless you and your families this Lenten season.

Authentic Christian Service

Father Behm, as always, speaks truth with love helping us to Draw Near to God and grow in Christian charity. We are meant to be "with Jesus" through others NOT just to those outside our community on the occasionaly mission trip, but every day with our community. Mother Teresa once said when asked how to serve the poor, "Go home and love your family."

3 characteristics of Authentic Christian service:

1. Personal: encounter with another human being

2. Christocentric: See the face of Jesus Christ in every person we encounter

3. Begin with those closest to us

Read the readings for the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe here!

We are blessed to have Fr. Patrick Behm, has joined us as a guest contributor! We will be posting some of his homilies as bonus content, confident that they will provide some great spiritual nourishment! Check out our website (under the blog tab) to find more of his homilies from week to week! We will also (after Thanksgiving) have small group questions available for each homily!

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Heaven: What God Has Planned for Those Who Love Him

We are blessed to share that our good friend and frequent guest, Fr Patrick Behm, has joined us as a guest contributor! We will be posting some of his homilies as bonus content, confident that they will provide some great spiritual nourishment! Check out our website (under the blog tab) to find more of his homilies from week to week! We will also (after Thanksgiving) have small group questions available for each homily!

This week, Fr Behm continues his series on the Four Last Things with a homily on Heaven!

Read the readings for the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time here!

Fr Patrick Behm does not receive any compensation for his contributions to Draw Near.

Homily with Fr Patrick Behm, theme music © Fred Shellabarger & Kara Kardell

Draw Near Theme © Fred Shellabarger & Kara Kardell

Purgatory: Letting Our Eyes Adjust to the Light

Homily with Fr Patrick Behm (32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time)

We are blessed to share that our good friend and frequent guest, Fr Patrick Behm, has joined us as a guest contributor! We will be posting some of his homilies as bonus content, confident that they will provide some great spiritual nourishment! Check out our website (under the blog tab) to find more of his homilies from week to week! We will also have small group questions available for each homily!

This week, Fr Behm continues his series on the Four Last Things with a homily on Purgatory.

Read the readings for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time here!

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**Fr Patrick Behm does not receive any compensation for his contributions to Draw Near. **

Homily with Fr Patrick Behm, theme music © Fred Shellabarger & Kara Kardell

Draw Near Theme © Fred Shellabarger & Kara Kardell

Hell: Understanding What’s At Stake

We are blessed to share that our good friend and frequent guest, Fr Patrick Behm, has joined us as a guest contributor! We will be posting some of his homilies as bonus content, confident that they will provide some great spiritual nourishment! Check out our website (under the blog tab) to find more of his homilies from week to week! We will also have small group questions available for each homily!

Read the readings for the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time here!

Discussion questions coming soon!

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Like our podcast? Hit that “subscribe” button AND the notification button/bell to know when new episodes are posted! Give us a rating! Leave a review! Tell your friends! Even more, pray for us!

Fr Patrick Behm does not receive any compensation for his contributions to Draw Near.
Homily with Fr Patrick Behm, theme music © Fred Shellabarger & Kara Kardell
Draw Near Theme © Fred Shellabarger & Kara Kardell

All Saints Day Can Be Your Feast Day

On All Saints Day in 2021 I watched the homily Fr. Mike Schmitz gave at his online Mass, and it has stuck with me since then.

He said, “The Feast of All Saints can be your feast day.”

I think this simple sentence captures the importance of our celebration of all saints day in such a profound way.

Growing up Catholic, I remember dressing up for all saints day in elementary school, and getting a day off from K-8th grade. I remember going to Mass to celebrate and I never really questioned why we did it, I knew it was a holy day of obligation, but I never really understood the significance of the feast day as it related to me until I was in college. But, hearing Fr. Mike’s homily, I was challenged to think about the importance of this feast in regards to my own life.

Why was it a Holy Day of Obligation? Why did we go to Mass to celebrate this feast day? What makes it SO important?

The feast of All Saints honors those who have gone before us. It recognizes them for their perseverance in life and for the way they have shown us the path to heaven. It honors them for a life lived in the grace of God and for their participation in the victory of Christ.

But even more than that, it honors them as a sign of hope for our own salvation. Their example gives us hope that we will also win the race. That our lives will glorify God as theirs have. That we too, can be saints. And not only can we be saints, but we should be saints.

I've struggled a lot with the idea of being a saint throughout my life. One semester in college I took a class all about saints. In every class we would learn about more than one saint who had lived extraordinarily, and I remember thinking that I could never live up to that. That there was no hope for me. I couldn’t be that good or that extraordinary. I was just me.

During one of my assignments for this class, I was reflecting on my perspective on sainthood. I had known that we were supposed to learn from the saints, of course, but it seemed that I had missed the point of what I was really supposed to be taking from their lives.

Caught up in my own imperfection and sinfulness, I let myself lose hope of being a saint. Instead of truly learning how these saints “made it,” instead of seeing how they really got to heaven, I saw an impossible mountain that I could never climb on my own.

That isn’t the point though. The point isn’t to reach some unattainable status of perfection. The point is to learn to rely on the Lord’s grace. To lean on Him in my imperfection and say “Lord, I cannot do this on my own, please carry me where I am too weak to continue any further.” To be like St. Thérèse and ask for an elevator to heaven. To humbly recognize my imperfection and gratefully accept the Lord’s mercy and continue on with Him despite it. And He would ultimately be the one to give the strength to overcome it.

Sainthood isn’t a “fake it til you make it” thing, which is so hard to grasp in our modern society. Sainthood is about accepting the reality of who you are in the eyes of the Lord, and letting Him pull you up where you don’t have the strength. The saints are not the ones who have earned heaven. They’re the ones who have chosen to accept the Lord’s love for them.

This doesn’t mean that we have an excuse to not take our faith seriously. In fact, it means the opposite. We have a God who is constantly reaching out to us. A God who desires to know and love us. He reaches out to us in countless ways: through scripture, through the people around us, through creation, and through the sacraments. He gives us so many opportunities to receive his grace and to respond to His love for us. The saints are the ones who have seen and accepted that. The ones who have learned to lean on the Lord instead of the world.

They were not perfect. They still sinned, they struggled with sins that you and I probably struggle with today. They were no different than you and me. All they did was turn to the Lord and lean on Him in their weakness and do their best to follow Him. And that’s what we’re called to do. And as we put Him first, as we grow in relationship with Him, the rest follows.

Sainthood is not unattainable. It’s not earned by living life perfectly. It’s given to those who seek the Lord above all other things, despite their weakness.

All Saints Day can be your feast day.

You CAN be a saint.

Just lean on the Christ and He will get you there.

Originally found on the “Joyfully His” blog. Shared by our Draw Near contributor, EmmaLee Miklosovic. Find the original blog here.

Greatness Is…

In an address to young people at World Youth Day, Pope Benedict XVI once declared, “The world promises you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.” Although he was speaking to young people, this is a profound truth for everyone; no matter the age. No matter the stage. But, what does this mean? What is greatness? Can I really be great? How can I be great, much less called to greatness when there is nothing around me that feels or seems great? Who am I really? Is it too late to be “great?” Have I (as I have felt at times) wasted too much time for the Lord to use me in any great way?

First, we have to realize that as beautiful as these words are, we can have trouble accepting them, much less applying the words to ourselves. Why? Well, first of all, “GREATNESS” is intimidating; and we don’t really know what that word means - at least not in the truest sense.

The world sells us a twisted version of what “greatness” looks like. And we too often buy it wholesale. Greatness is accolades and accomplishments; its this salary; it’s the big house in the suburban cookie cutter neighborhood; it’s a boat; the car (or maybe a few) we drive; it’s having it all figured out, or at least looking like we do.

Social media makes this worse. Even for those of us sincerely striving to live the faith well, we can fall into the trap of comparing ourselves to others. A blessing one-up-manship can develop. I’m more blessed than you! We may not say it explicitly… but we do it! More often probably though, we feel somehow “less blessed” than the happy successful people filling our social feeds. We share only the good things! What makes us look put together. It’s a vicious cycle really. I see friends post how their 6 year old just wrote his own mass setting; learned how to pray the Divine Office in Latin all while completing a dissertation on the complete works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Then, I look at my kids running around like animals while we try to pray the Rosary… and I feel like, wow… I’m not good at this… I must not be a great dad. Rather than rejoicing in my friend’s success… I feel somehow less than.

But in actuality, the greatness is in the intention. Greatness is doing the right thing despite the circumstances. No time with my kids, especially attempting to pray, is wasted.

In Scripture we read of James and John arguing over who is the greater apostle… we still do this. But, greatness is honesty. Greatness is vulnerability. Greatness is transparency. Greatness is authenticity, especially in friendship. Greatness is faithfulness to our vocation and state in life, even in the most mundane day to day activities; even when we don’t really want to, even when we want to give up.

I heard a priest once answer the question, “When did you decide to be a priest?” with a very surprising answer. His response: “This morning. When did you decide to be married?” That’s greatness.

Another way we struggle to understand this call to greatness is that we give into feelings of discouragement in two different ways:

1. We say to ourselves, “Some day I’ll be a saint. Some day I’ll be good enough.” “Someday I will find my vocation.” As if it’s a destination that we have to earn a ticket for. And we just fumble our way through life and hope we find it along the way. But we cannot really serve the Lord until we do… We can give into despair because of this.
   

2. We can say to ourselves, “I’m only human. I’m not perfect and never will be. Why try?” This is a resignation to mediocrity and apathy. It is the lukewarmness that Jesus tells us in the book of Revelation chapter three displeases him so much. It is choosing comfort and ease.

The third way and perhaps, the most difficult way we struggle to understand and accept this call to greatness is a matter of identity. Simply put, we often don’t really know who Christ is well enough to know who we are, and who we are in Him! We struggle to understand this idea of greatness because we forget that the greatness for which we are made, the greatness we are called to, has much more to do with who we are, than it does necessarily with what we do, what we have, our status in the world, our position, or authority. Do we let our identity as sons and daughters of God shape our lives? Guide our decisions? Form the foundation of our relationships? That, is greatness!

Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 2013 tells us, “All Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and the perfection of charity. All are called to holiness.” (Matt 5:48) What is greatness? Living the call to holiness and mission! That’s what you were made for! I think it’s important to keep this at the forefront of our minds always. What is my purpose? Where am I going? Why am I here?

Say it with me: I was created by love, for love, to love. I am created for loving communion with God and with people. Called to the life of heaven. To get there I must know him, love him and serve him, in all things. That is pursuing holiness. It is a process. It takes time. It takes dedication. It takes passion. It takes great love. But, that is greatness.

God’s not calling any one of us to be merely a good person. He’s calling us to be saints. He is calling us to follow Him. To take his yoke upon us and learn from Him. He is saying to us, “I choose you. You have what it takes because I have given it to you. I have poured out my love, my heart, my life into your very being for this purpose. So that you may be conformed to my image. So that you may learn to think like me, speak like me, act like me, and most of all, love like me! My Spirit will lead you and guide you into all truth if only you allow this and cooperate with my grace.” The Lord tells us to be perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect (Matt 5:48)! That’s a tall order. But, we don’t do this in our own strength. There are no bootstraps to lift up here. In the kingdom down is up; less is more. “He must increase, and I must decrease.” He has given us and continues to give us, every means to become great.

God wants to make us saints through the work of grace. Whether or not we become a saint, is really up to us. We have to let him do it in us. At every moment, as St John of the Cross said, God is at work to make our souls great. But, he is a gentleman and he doesn’t force himself upon us. He needs our cooperation to bring about our transformation. To bring about greatness in us. He needs us to accept this call to true greatness. Being a better “me” is not good enough. God is calling us to be Christ in the world. Your world. He’s calling you to be a “living epistle read by all” (2 Cor 3:2-3). That simply means a living, breathing, walking Bible; the joy of the Gospel wherever we go. Bringing Christ to the world. That is greatness.

Greatness is being able to sincerely pray with St Patrick:
Christ in the eyes of everyone who sees me
Christ in the ears of everyone who hears me
Christ on the lips of everyone who speaks of me
Christ in the mind of everyone who thinks of me

Greatness is being able to pray the Litany of Humility and mean it:
That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be chosen and I set aside,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be praised and I go unnoticed,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be preferred to me in everything,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

It’s easy to hear this, think of the great saints, and dismiss it. “Oh, I could never do that.” But, the great saints have something that we also have! Saints are simply people who love God. Saints are people that when they fall, they get back up. With an even greater stubborn boldness and zeal. With every fall they recognize that, in a way, they are falling up on there way to God! Provided, we do not give into discouragement and that we remember the words of St John: “Little children, you are of God, and have overcome them; for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

God doesn’t give up. He made you for greatness. He has called you to greatness. Where you are, now! Today. Here in this moment. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Today. Now. Greatness begins with relationship with him. Greatness is recognizing that though you may fall a thousand times, his love and mercy remains; just as a loving parent delights as a child learns to walk, and stumbles along the way. You are no different. Knowing this, being confident in this, knowing that you are a joy for Jesus, that’s greatness. Turning away from sin, and allowing him to transform your life? That is greatness. Allowing yourself to receive in His mercy and forgiveness when you mess up, yep, that is also greatness! Being an instrument of this same mercy and forgiveness in the world? Yep. That’s greatness too! Too many people fail to realize how deeply the Father thirsts for their love! And how He desires to be their Savior.

What does greatness look like? It looks like love of and service to God without limits. None of the saints put any limits on their service to God. As Maximilian Kolbe says, “Their former mediocre righteousness no longer satisfied them. By striving to reach the peak of Christian perfection, they tried to redeem the time and the graces they had previously squandered. In fact, when it comes to the glory of God, and the salvation of souls, no effort is too heavy for a saint, no cross is unpleasant… because it can be put to the service of God’s love.”

Sometimes we make following the will of God for our lives much more complicated than it actually is. And so, we think this kind of “greatness” seems out of reach. Through the pages of Scripture, the teachings of the Church, the lives of the saints, the Lord has actually given us a pretty good road map to follow.

o We are reminded that we should of course, Love God and love our neighbors.

o That we should love the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind and strength

o That we should seek first the kingdom and put the Lord before all things

o That we should put our trust in him and surrender all that burdens us.

Yet, making decisions from day to day, and especially about our future can be so overwhelming and cause so much anxiety. At every moment of the day we are presented with a decision to make: “Who am I serving?” “Who’s kingdom am I building.” How we answer those questions: well, that is greatness. Or, it is not.

In the book The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis writes (which character these words are attributed to I do not recall, but the point remains): “There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who say, ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.’ and those who say, ‘My kingdom come, my will be done.’” We see this example in the Blessed Mother, the “New Eve” as she is often called. What a contrast. Mary says, “Be it unto me according to thy word.” Eve effectively says, “Be it unto my word.” One is greatness. One is not.

Greatness is making the right choice, always. Every day. Even when it hurts. Even when it may cost us. Even when no one notices. “Friends” may walk away, people may mock us.
Greatness is faithfulness.

St Ignatius of Loyola offers us some wisdom here: “To make a good choice our intentions ought to be simple: only looking at what we were created for; namely the praise of God, our Lord, and the salvation of souls. So, I ought to choose, in whatever I may do, that which may help me fulfill that end for which I am created.”

Say it with me: I was created for the praise of God and for the salvation of souls. First my own, and then those around me. That’s my primary purpose. Living with that in mind is greatness.

Greatness is:

• Seeking to live out this purpose where we are. Not “someday,” but today. Faithful to our state in life. Faithful in the little things. Where the Lord has us.

• Refusing to compromise your purity and saving yourself as a gift for your future spouse.

• Accepting the love and mercy of God, receiving his forgiveness. And offering that same mercy to others.

• Recognizing that God is well able to redeem the time and make up for what you have done poorly if you let him.

• Offering up that task that you so hate to do as a sacrifice, as an offering, as a prayer in and of itself for someone in need.

• The smile you give to the cashier at Wal-Mart as you look into her eyes. No one has done that today. No one has done that in months. She feels in that brief moment, the love of God through you.

• The dad who despite having eight children, and a busy schedule, wakes up every morning at 3 AM to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet on behalf of his family. No one will ever see this. No one will ever know. How does he have time? He makes it.

• Being able to see that with every diaper you change you are also changing the world.

• Lending an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on for someone in need; even when you don’t really want to.

• Choosing not to click “yes” to the question, “Are you still watching?”

• The college student who continues to go to daily Mass despite the busy schedule; despite the ridicule of friends.

• Being able to put the phone down and be present to the person sitting across from you. Recognizing Christ in them! Even if you don’t particularly like that person.

• Praying when you don’t feel like it. Perhaps praying even more when you don’t feel like it.

• Praying for people in the moment; when they ask, and allowing yourself to intercede on their behalf and be a channel of God’s love and grace.

• Picking up whatever cross and suffering that we may have to bear in this life, and recognizing that in all things God works for good for those who love him (Rom 8:28). And like Christ, enduring the cross for the joy that is set before us (Heb 12:2).

• Recognizing that our trials serve to strengthen us. If we will let God work in these moments. Those areas where we struggle most, are most often the places where God is trying to cultivate virtue in us; where he is calling forth greatness.

• Embracing the truth that every person your eyes will meet today, and every person who hears your voice… Yep, the Lord has given you them to love today.

• Realizing that the Lord has given you a gift in this call to greatness. God’s love is so powerful, so complete, so perfect, so beyond our comprehension, that each one of us reveals an aspect of his love in the world that only we can reveal. Greatness is allowing yourself to be a reservoir of love that is poured out on those around you!

St Therese of Lisieux, offers us this:

“I understood that to become a saint, one had to suffer much, seek out always the most perfect thing to do, and forget self. I understood, too, there were many degrees of perfection and each soul was free to respond to the advances of Our Lord, to do little or much for Him, in a word, to choose among the sacrifices He was asking. Then, as in the days of my childhood, I cried out: “My God ‘I choose all!’ I don’t want to be a saint by halves, I’m not afraid to suffer for You, I fear only one thing: to keep my own will; so take it, for ‘I choose all’ that You will!”

Greatness is saying, with St Therese, “I choose all.”

Pride and Humility and Psalm 23

After each Mass I go to, I pray Psalm 23.

For a long time, I only said the words.

At Franciscan everyone knelt to pray after Mass was over, and I wasn’t sure what to pray. So I quickly came up with a few routine prayers to say as I knelt after Mass so I wouldn’t stick out as the one leaving earlier than everyone else. (Ah my vain and prideful heart makes itself known again haha!) I would pray the prayer to St. Michael, a classic post Mass prayer, and I would pray the Memorare, for a little extra grace from Mama Mary.

Now, it wasn’t until my Sophomore spring that I began to pray Psalm 23 after Mass. My household (sort of a Catholic Sorority on campus, though that is a huge over-simplification) had updated our formation that year and it was required that each household sister memorize it and we began reciting Psalm 23 after every 6:30am Mass we went to as a household.

I did not often allow myself to really reflect on the words as I said them, though. I would say them passively, and I recited it on my own after Mass to keep the words fresh in my mind so that I would have it memorized per our household’s requirement. (If new sisters were expected to have it memorized it would be wrong of me not to, I figured it was important to teach by example.)

After college, I continued this practice. After Mass I would kneel and say the St. Michael prayer, the Memorare, and Psalm 23. I emphasize the word “say” because I don’t think I really prayed the words or took them to heart. I just continued to passively say the words out of habit.

In the last few weeks, the Lord has poured out His grace over me in a new way. Many of these personal graces which have touched my heart I will hold there, as I don’t think all of it is meant for the world, at least not at this moment. But one grace He has given me is a new love for the Mass and for Himself in the Eucharist (and I can say with full confidence that He wants me to share that with the world).

In a previous post, I talked about a fast from music that I felt called to, in order to attune my heart to the voice of the Lord. This fast has been the source of many graces, and has been especially fruitful during the car ride home after Mass each day.

It was after Mass one day when I was reflecting on the Lord in the Eucharist, that a line from Psalm 23 was placed on my heart. “His goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” (Ps. 23:6)

On this particular drive home, I was reflecting on who the Lord is in the Eucharist, and I shared some of this in a previous blog post. In reflecting on who the Lord is, it allows us to see more clearly who we are. His identity is where we find our own. And so I was reflecting on the Lord as the person of Love and the significance of receiving Him in the Eucharist that morning and just how good the Lord is. And that is when he placed Psalm 23:6 on my mind. “His goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”

I had often thought this was a prideful statement before. I think because I misunderstood this scripture.

Whenever I'd heard Psalm 23, I would focus on the first verse, “The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.” And this verse has significance as it sets the tone for the whole rest of this Psalm. But in almost every reflection I had heard about Psalm 23 it focused on how there is nothing else we should want but the Lord. And each time I heard this, I was wracked with guilt because there were so many other things I wanted besides the Lord. I thought there was something so wrong with me because I was a human girl whose heart often was drawn to things of the world.

In many ways, I had missed the mark in my understanding of what that first verse meant. I had been so focused on how imperfect I was that I let it draw me away from the Lord. I was the sheep who strayed from the rest of the herd and from the Shepherd. I had thought that I needed to earn the Lord’s favor (this is a common theme in my blogs, I think, because it’s literally the story of my life.) I convinced myself that if I was the sheep who strayed, I should do everything in my power to find my way back alone instead of waiting for the Lord to find me and carry me back home. I had tried to make myself, a dumb little sheep, into a shepherd… and for anyone who knows anything about sheep that can only end in disaster since it’s quite an impossible transformation.

I had forgotten that very first line, “The Lord is my Shepherd.”

And when you read the Psalm, which speaks of the goodness of the Shepherd, and of struggles and dark valleys and walking in the shadow of death, and it never once implies that a sheep has to make it through those places on their own. But the Shepherd, Who provides for every need, is there every step of the way. He is our protection. Not because of who we are, but because of who He is.

And that’s exactly what set in as I was reflecting on this in the car that day. His goodness and mercy follows me, not because I made myself into a shepherd to impress him, because that’s quite impossible, but because He is the Shepherd and it is in His nature to care for His sheep. It’s just who He is.

It is only in humility that one can truly receive.

And so only when we humble ourselves, and recognize that we are only lowly sheep, and allow the Shepherd to be who He is, goodness and mercy will follow each day of our lives, and he will bring us safely to His house where we shall dwell forever.

So to acknowledge that the Lord’s goodness and mercy will shower over us forever is not pride, because it is grace which is not earned. We receive the goodness and mercy of the Lord only when we humbly allow ourselves to. Only when we recognize our identity in Him can we receive what He has for us. And we can do that only when we realize that the Lord is our Shepherd, and we are His sheep.

And when we cling to that truth, that the Lord is our Shepherd who provides for the needs of His sheep, then we can truly realize that there is nothing else we could ever want.

Psalm 23

The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside still waters,

He restores my soul.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil

For You are with me, Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Originally found on the “Joyfully His” blog. Shared by our Draw Near contributor, EmmaLee Miklosovic. Find the original blog here.

The Eucharist - The Sacrament of Love

"The Eucharist is the Sacrament of love: it signifies love, it produces love"
-St. Thomas Aquinas

Something I have been reflecting on in the past weeks is the Eucharist.

Part of this is due to the fact that I am giving a few talks on the Eucharist in the next few weeks but I think that the Lord has been really working in my heart to appreciate Him in the Eucharist more.

As I have been reflecting and looking back on my journey of faith and the ways I have encountered the Lord in the Eucharist, one thing has stuck out to me. That the Eucharist is the fulfillment of my deepest desire. The desire to love and to be loved.

For my whole life I have tried to earn love and to prove that I am worthy of love. When I failed I would despair because I thought I had lost any of the love that I had worked so hard to earn. My identity became my failure. Then, I would burn myself out trying to be the best and to be perfect, just how I thought everyone wanted me to be. I tried to earn back the love that I thought I had lost.

This didn’t work in my favor. I ended up depressed and alone and utterly exhausted. I couldn’t be what I thought everyone needed me to be and I hated myself for it.

Over the years, I have learned that true love, the love that comes from God, is not earned but freely given. I have found a new identity in the love of the Father and it gives me great joy. I have been created because He loves me and there is nothing I can do that will take that love away. His love for me is far stronger than any of my shortcomings.

As I have been reflecting on my past experiences in the last month or so, I have thanked God numerous times for His love that never stops pursuing me. During my darkest times, he was still seeking me. His grace got me to youth group almost every week which often included Eucharistic adoration. My parents brought me to Mass every Sunday, and He was pursuing me there. Every retreat He made it possible for me to attend was His pursuit of me. Every time I was drawn to the confessional, He was pursuing me there.

There is no way a person can know that truth and not be changed by it. The Lord’s love is the strongest love to exist and He is constantly pursuing us.

I was reflecting on this in the car today on the way home from Mass. Specifically the way the Lord pursues His people in the Eucharist. He humbles Himself and makes Himself incarnate on the altar, and then allows us to receive Him and to become one flesh with Him.

God, the creator of the Universe, who is Love (1John 4:16) allows us to receive Him and become one with Him.

When you encounter the person of Love in such an intimate way, there is no way you cannot be changed by that.

That’s not to say don’t struggle with doubt or anxiety anymore. Satan sees the truth taking root and he wants to rip it out. So I’ll still question myself, I’ll still have doubts, but as I encounter the Lord more (especially in the Eucharist) I can separate the truth from the lies that the devil puts into my mind. Because each time I encounter Jesus in the Eucharist, I become conformed to His truth, THE truth. The truth is that He is Love and in every moment He is loving me. I am a child of God and loved by Him infinitely more than I can imagine.

The more I go to Mass, the more I become rooted in my true identity as a daughter of God. Because in the Eucharist I encounter the truest of loves. I encounter Love incarnate. The Love of God made flesh. And not only do I encounter Him, but I become one with Him. And each time I do that, my heart becomes more and more like His and I learn how to love every person I encounter as He does.

And when I think about it that way, I want to go to Mass more. It is where my deepest desire, to love and to be loved, is fulfilled in a way no other person can fulfill it.

What else could I need if I received the very incarnation of Love today?

Nothing. I need nothing else.

And so each day I go to Mass and receive the Lord with an open heart, I can pray with full conviction, “The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.” (Psalm 23:1)

For there is truly nothing else I shall want but Him.

Originally found on the “Joyfully His” blog. Shared by our Draw Near contributor, EmmaLee Miklosovic. Find the original blog here.

The Importance of Silence

I don’t know about you but I love to listen to music. I listen to music when I work, and when I read. I create playlists based on my favorite books or based on the season or just my moods. I love listening to all types of music and it’s not abnormal for me to take an hour to listen to a bunch of new songs and add them to my many playlists.

When I was in high school and college, music was what I used to focus. It was how I tuned out the chaos of my noisy house to get my homework done. Or when it was too quiet in the library, I used music to help focus there. Back when I shared a room with my sister (who SNORED) I used music to help me sleep.

I wake up to music every morning, and play my favorite playlists as I get ready for my day. When I have Mass in the morning, I play my Upbeat Christian Playlist. If I don’t have Mass, I listen to folk tunes or maybe upbeat pop music.

Every time I get in the car I listen to music. If I’m driving to Mass, it’s something related to Jesus. If I’m driving pretty much anywhere else, I’m probably listening to Noah Kahan’s latest album because I think it’s the best driving music (especially for driving past all the corn fields I encounter in Iowa.)

At night I listen to music as I get ready for bed. Sometimes it’s old Taylor Swift songs that I dance around my bedroom to as I sing the lyrics that I associate with my childhood into my hairbrush. (Yes I’m 22, and I’m not too old for that.) Sometimes it’s my playlist inspired by seasonal depression which makes me cry if I’m feeling sad enough, or other times it’s my “Songs to Dance to at 12am” playlist.

I even sleep with a fan on because the white noise helps me sleep.

Even as I’m typing this, I am tempted to put my AirPods in for a little background noise. Out of habit, I want to fill the silence around me because it’s what I’ve done for years. And I am not the only one who is like this, I think most of us are accustomed to constant noise now. You might not be exactly like me, maybe instead of music your noise is the TV, or maybe its Facebook Reels or TikTok or YouTube. Maybe it’s work and constant activity. But one thing is certain: in our world today, there are constant streams of noise everywhere. So much so that we have become afraid of the silence.

In social settings, silence is seen as awkward (and while sometimes it is, comfortable silence in a relationship is actually a good thing.) When we are waiting in line at the store, we habitually pull out our phones to scroll on social media or check our text messages. We can’t be alone with our own thoughts for five minutes or it drives us crazy.

In 1 Kings 19:11-13 the prophet Elijah goes up to a mountain top to pray. He listens for God’s voice and through wind, earthquakes and fire the Lord does not speak to him, but it is in the silence that comes after that Elijah hears the Lord’s voice.

It is in the silence that the Lord speaks.

Our world is filled with noise. While we may not be on a mountaintop surrounded by fire or earthquakes or great winds, we are surrounded by the chaos of our world and we are afraid of the silence. And when we let the world’s noise be our protection, the voice of our true Protector becomes lost and we are led away from Him.

It is important that we allow ourselves to not only become comfortable with silence, but that we embrace it. We must seek it out and wrap ourselves in it. The devil uses noise to tune out the voice of God. We must use silence to reconnect with the Lord and tune out the voice of satan. The more we become accustomed to the voice of God, the voice of Truth, the easier it will be to identify and reject the lies that Satan offers to us. And silence is key to that.

Often I will put my phone in another room for an hour in order to be rid of the temptation to be on it (I’m on it way too much). When I go to mass I leave my phone in the car. This week I am fasting from music so that I can learn to embrace silence and welcome the Lord’s voice into every moment.

I would encourage you to reflect on your life, where do you consume the most noise, and how can you separate yourself from it for this week? The Lord wants to speak to you, to know you, and to love you, but you must not drown His voice out with the noise that surrounds you. But you must become comfortable in silence and open your heart to hear Him.

Originally found on the “Joyfully His” blog. Shared by our Draw Near contributor, EmmaLee Miklosovic. Find the original blog here.

Perfectionism

I have been called perfect my whole life.

I don’t say this because I want you to think I am perfect. I say this because those words are ones that I have come to dislike very much, because I am not perfect.

I grew up as the second oldest of nine children, and as one of the oldest siblings, I had a lot of responsibilities. In many ways, there was a pressure to be perfect. I had to be the perfect example, the perfect role model, the perfect helper, the perfect daughter, the perfect older sister. I am willing to bet that my older sister felt the same way as me. We were forced to grow up pretty quickly, we helped raise our siblings more than we grew up with them. From the time we were 11 we would babysit rather frequently, and there was a time in high school where I babysat almost every night.

Having to live up to this perfect version of myself who did not exist was extremely damaging to me. I did not allow myself to be justified in the ways I was hurt, I learned to rely on myself before relying on anyone else. Eventually, the pressure became too much, I failed classes and I spent any free moment I could in my room either on twitter or sleeping (every Sunday after Mass I would sleep for the entire afternoon). I remember I was failing a class and I thought, “God, it would just be so much easier if you ended it right now. I can’t be who everyone needs me to be, it would be easier not to live anymore.”

All of this because I felt utterly alone and burnt out at the age of 17. I didn’t know how to be perfect but I thought I had to be, and that pressure broke me and opened the door for me to cope in sinful ways.

Now I still hear the words, “you’re perfect,” and those words always give me an anxious feeling. I hear those words for different reasons than I did before. I hear them because I am a young person working in the Church. I hear them because I graduated from college and have a good job. I hear them because by the world’s standards, I am successful. And I hate those words now because I know how damaging the pressure to be perfect was when I was young.

I still feel that pressure to be perfect. Maybe not at the same capacity, but I feel it all the time. I have to be the perfect catholic because of my job, I have to have the perfect prayer life, I have to be the perfect example of what it is to be a young christian woman.

And so whenever I hear someone say, “you’re perfect,” all I want to do is scream that I am not. While it is important to have high standards for ourselves we have to be careful that we are not also wounding ourselves by putting too much pressure on our shoulders.

Jesus calls us to, “be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect,” (Matt 5:48) but he does not call us to do it on our own strength. It is not possible for us to be perfect by our own strength and it is prideful to think we can. And the mindset that we can and should be perfect on our own strength without the help of God, actually leads us into deeper sin than we could ever expect. And when we inevitably fall, it hurts ten times more and it becomes easier to lay there in our despair than to try and get up again. I know this from experience.

I tried to be perfect on my own strength. I tried to climb the steep mountain and walk the narrow path without guidance, and when I fell it was further than I ever imagined I would fall. And it hurt. And I felt the most alone that I ever had before. And all I wanted to do was lay there and let the hurt seep in and give up on trying.

It was the Lord who picked me up and carried me out of that time of my life. It was the Lord who took my hand and guided me to where I am. He is the one who comes to search for me when I wander off the path and get tangled in branches covered in thorns. I am not the one who is perfect, but He is.

So I do not want to be known for being perfect. If I am ever known for anything, I want to be known for radical trust in the Lord. I want people to see that I was not perfect, but that the Lord loved me anyway. I want to be known because the Lord chose me even though I was imperfect and unworthy, not because I somehow made myself worthy.

Sainthood is not earned. Heaven is not earned. Grace is not earned. It is a free gift from the Lord who loves us not only despite our weakness, but in our weakness. And he carries us out and brings us home.

So let Him carry you.

Originally found on the “Joyfully His” blog. Shared by our Draw Near contributor, EmmaLee Miklosovic. Find the original blog here.

My Two Cents on Prayer

Fairly recently, I was asked to help plan a high school retreat with prayer as the focus. Each time I would sit down to brainstorm ideas for talks, I found myself completely lost for what to do. I was so overwhelmed with the fact that there were so many different types of prayer and an infinite number of ways to pray. Even my own prayer life can be a struggle because prayer can seem so overwhelming.

Some days praying is like pulling teeth, I sit there and I get easily distracted by every little thing and I become so frustrated with myself. I’ll sit down to read my bible and I’ll find that my heart isn’t really in it, I’m reading the Bible because I’m told that’s what holy people do, not because I want to know God.

I think I’ve talked about this in an earlier blog post, but I often find that I make holiness a competition with myself. I feel like I need to get as holy as possible as fast as possible on my own strength. It comes from some deepest wound which caused me to believe that I need to earn love, and I know in my mind that it is a lie but old habits die hard. So my prayer becomes a race to prove that I am worthy of God’s love, not a time of seeking a genuine relationship with Him.

So every time I would go to plan this retreat, I would open a Google Doc. and just stare at it. I would try to come up with ideas for talks, for different ways to introduce what prayer is in a way that would not only make sense, but would also be appealing to my audience. For weeks, every time I sat there thinking about this retreat, I always came up with nothing. I had no idea where to start.

And so, yesterday I had put some time in my schedule, yet again, to brainstorm for this retreat. And as I stared at that blank Google Doc. I asked the Lord for some direction since I was struggling so much (something I should have done earlier.) After a moment, I realized that there is a perfect place to start right on my bookshelf. The Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The CCC is broken up into four parts, which are the pillars of our faith. The first is the Profession of Faith (the section on the Creed, and what we believe, sort of the content of our faith), the second is the Sacraments (the ways that the Lord communicates Himself to us and gives us access to His grace), the third is Life in Christ (how we are expected to live as catholics based on what we believe), and the last pillar is about prayer.

Evidently, in my studies through college, the one section of the Catechism that I was the least familiar with was that last section. Most of my classes really focused on the first three pillars (So much so that I’ve read through them all about three times). But I’m not sure that I was ever required to read from the section on prayer.

So that’s what I did. I got out my catechism, opened to the very last section and began to read and annotate to my heart’s content. And to my surprise, the first part of this section summed prayer up very simply. It said (and I’m paraphrasing here) that prayer is when a person humbly raises their mind and heart to God who is constantly pursuing us out of love. It is our response to God’s constant seeking after us.

When I took a class on the Theology of the Body in college, something that was stressed the whole way through is that God always initiates a relationship with us. He is always choosing us, always running after us, and we have the ability to choose him in return or we can choose against him and turn our backs on Him. But the important thing to remember is that He always is initiating the relationship with us, not the other way around.

If this is true (and it is) then prayer is simply us stopping and allowing Him to enter our hearts and minds. It’s not a race to prove we’re worthy of Him, it’s not us trying to reach an unattainable level of holiness on our own, but it is as simple as stopping and inviting the Lord into our hearts.

Prayer doesn’t have to be a complex set of steps and memorized prayers that somehow proves that you are holy. Especially at the beginning stages of building a habit of prayer, simpler is the way to go. Reading the daily readings is the simple act of acknowledging God and His truth. The simple prayer, “Come Holy Spirit,” is a beautiful way to elevate your mind and make the Lord the center of what you are doing.

Honestly, though, the Lord just wants to spend time with you. He’s not picky on the how, just that you give Him time to love you and to be loved by you.

So if you’ve been struggling to have a consistent prayer life or if the thought of prayer overwhelms you, take it slow and start simply. Prayer is not complicated, it can be as simple as telling the Lord that you’re really enjoying your ice cream cone. He only wants the opportunity to spend some time with you. Because He loves you deeply.

Originally found on the “Joyfully His” blog. Shared by our Draw Near contributor, EmmaLee Miklosovic. Find the original blog here.

Lord, Give Me Your Heart

Today marks the first day of what our secular society knows as pride month.

At the end of this post I am going to link two posts that inspired mine.

I want to begin this by saying I am a straight catholic woman, I have not been a victim of the judgement of other Catholics on the LGBTQ+ community. But I know people who have been chased away from the Church by judgmental Catholics who think they understand what the struggle is like for those in the LGBTQ+ community. I have seen the brokenness when a person questions whether God loves them because of who they are attracted to. I had friends at Franciscan University who were seeking to live out their faith and find support from other Catholics in their struggle, but who were met with only hatred and judgement.

I follow quite a few catholic meme accounts on Instagram, and I have seen a lot of the same hatred. I have seen people declaring that we need to reclaim June as the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, but then they try to do so by being a voice of hatred, by treating those who identify with this community as if they are not people with dignity too. And we wonder why these people don’t want to be involved in our Church.

I’ve had many conversations over the last month and a half about this. I’ve talked about the disappointment of seeing our Church preach that our God is a God of love, and yet Her members often fail to be an example of that love. I remember specifically asking, “Why do we have support groups for people struggling with pornography addiction but as soon as someone says they’re gay we ostracize them?” Is it not the same struggle? Are both not an attack on the virtue of Chastity? Why are we not seeking to listen to and understand these people?

Jesus experienced humanity, he experienced our pain and suffering, He encountered the same temptations as we did, He made an effort to understand us in order to also save us. Are we not supposed to learn from His example? Are we not called to go out and have relationships with people who think differently than we do? Did Jesus not have meals with tax collectors? Did He not seek out St. Photina, the Woman at the Well, who was ostracized for living a sinful lifestyle? Are we not called to do as He did and seek out those very same people?

My heart again is drawn to Matthew 28:18, “Go out and make disciples of all nations.”

“Go OUT.

Go out to those men and women who do not know me. Go seek out the unfamiliar. Go and love those who have never experienced my love. Show the world a God that seeks them out where they are rejected.”

This is not to say that we encourage sin, I do not want you to misread this to think that I mean we should change the Church’s teaching on human sexuality. But Jesus sought out those living far from Him and showed them how much more He has to offer, this is what He means for us to do when He says to go out.

This means that we must truly get to know those who think differently than we do. We need to have genuine relationships with them. We can't start with preaching morality at them, but we must start by listening and seeking to understand who they are and what their struggle is. Does the Lord not patiently listen to everything we bring to Him? Does He not listen to us when we forget to also listen to Him?

We must learn to see past their sexuality. To truly seek to know the heart of the person who we meet on the street.

My Grandmother told me once that, “Love is the higher law.” I think this hits the mark. We need to be more concerned with loving our neighbor than we are with being right or winning an argument. That’s where we’re losing them.

We limit the person to their sexual orientation and fail to understand their heart. Because of this, the pews in our Churches are empty. Because we are failing to start by being an example of God’s love, so many beautiful people are being chased out and not brought in.

So this June let us ask that Christ give us His Heart so that we might be an example of His love.

Originally found on the “Joyfully His” blog. Shared by our Draw Near contributor, EmmaLee Miklosovic. Find the original blog here.

Silver and Gold

I was blessed to speak to the many wonderful volunteers at Mater Dei Parish in Sioux City, IA as part of an appreciation dinner. I promised to make those notes available here on our website to them and really anyone who finds this page. I pray it will be a word in season and will bring both encouragement and inspiration! Below you will also find a link to a podcast episode we did for Draw Near on this same topic if you would like a fuller discussion.

Those who attended the talk, may find that some of what I shared (testimonies, names of people, examples and such) may not appear in the notes.

Thank you again everyone for taking up the call to to be apostles; agents of evangelization and the renewal of the world around us through the joy of the Gospel. Wherever you find your selves, however you may serve, know that you have been called and gifted, created by love, for love, to love; to reveal the love of Christ to those around you. Be assured of our prayers for you!

- Fred Shellabarger

SCRIPTURE READING:
Acts 3:1-10
Now Peter and John were going up to the temple area for the three o’clock hour of prayer. And a man crippled from birth was carried and placed at the gate of the temple called “the Beautiful Gate” every day to beg for alms from the people who entered the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked for alms. But Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” He paid attention to them, expecting to receive something from them. Peter said, “I have neither silver nor gold, but what I do have I give you: in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, [rise and] walk.” Then Peter took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles grew strong. He leaped up, stood, and walked around, and went into the temple with them, walking and jumping and praising God. When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the one who used to sit begging at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, and they were filled with amazement and astonishment at what had happened to him.

___________________________________________________________________________

You could be anywhere else right now, but you are here. Like Peter and John, you’ve allowed YOUR plans, to be interrupted a bit. While a thank you, appreciation dinner is important, and it is good to know that you are appreciated, its not this dinner that I am referring to. 

It’s your life. Like Peter and John, you’ve allowed the needs of others to, at least in some small way, interrupt your plans. Your desires. This is a good thing! But, what can we learn about this account in Scripture? 

Notice first, that Peter and John did not allow their schedule to keep them from being open to opportunities to share the love of God that the Lord might place before them throughout their day. These are the Apostles (with a capital “A”). On their way to the Temple at 3:00. You know, that’s a pretty significant hour, correct? It was for the Jewish people of the time as well. They are trying to build this new thing called, the Church. Peter is the Pope. Yet, they paused. 

Not only that, but Peter “looked intently” at the man that so many had undoubtedly passed by every day. They looked intently! That means with great love. Luke’s account here also points out that the Apostles say to the beggar, “Look at us.” Almost as if they are saying, “See what great love we have for you.” But more importantly, “See what love and mercy God has for you.” 

The apostles I believe allowed “their plans” to be interrupted here in this instance because they recognized something that our culture, and even many Catholics fail to recognize. The purpose for which we were created.

Let’s take a step back, from the Beautiful Gate; from Peter and John and the Crippled Beggar; from Mater Dei Parish. Let’s look at you. You all know and have likely heard by now, I hope, that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life, correct?  

But it goes much deeper than that. Before the foundations of the world, God had each of you in mind. He loved that idea so much that he created you. Made that idea a reality and gave you life. He created you out of love, for love, to love. His loving thoughts of you is literally what holds you together.

But it goes deeper than that still! Because in creating you, not only did he give you life, but he also created you for a very specific purpose. A mission if you will, that only you can accomplish. He ordered your life so that you would have the right gifts, the right talents, and the right set of circumstances to help cultivate that purpose and those gifts in your life. Most importantly, so that you might be the best channel of the supernatural grace he has made available to you through relationship with Him; through the Sacraments, the work of the Holy Spirit, and the Church.

We can hear that phrase and find it intimidating. But it shouldn’t be. It does not mean the Lord is calling you to be the next St Francis of Assisi… Or, maybe, in a way he is! I’ll come back to that in a moment. 

What does it mean? What is your purpose? It comes down to just one word. Love. God has called and gifted each and every one of us in a unique way to reveal an aspect of His love in the world, to all those around us; a way that only we can. It was true for Peter and John, it was also true for the crippled beggar. It’s true for you.

In other words, God’s love is so overwhelming, so intense that each one of us has a unique way in which God has created us to reveal that love in the world. God wants to show forth his love through you in a way unique to you. In that sense, he needs you. Because, it’s what you were created for! 

It may seem like I’m going off topic, but stay with me! We pray it all the time in the Our Father. “Hallowed be thy name.” What does that mean? It means, “Lord, may your name be praised on account of me. Lord, in all that I set my hand to this day, may others encounter you.  Christ in the eye of everyone that sees me. Christ in the ear of everyone that hears me. Christ in the mind of everyone that thinks of me. Lord, may your name be praised.” 

We pray, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done.” What does it mean? Well… in a very real way it means:

God who is love, fill me so full of that love that it may overflow into the hearts of all those around me. Lord, God Almighty, help me to love better, to love stronger, to love deeper, to love more fully like yourself. Holy Spirit, God who is love, help me to love well. Come, Holy Spirit. Inspire my thoughts. Guide my words and direct my actions. May all of these serve to build your kingdom in my heart, in my home, in my relationships, and in the world around me.

And that is exactly what we see happening here. In this Scripture passage, and even in this room. Though many of you might not have ever thought of your service to the Church in this way. I pray that changes tonight. 

There are many crippled beggars in the world, sitting at the beautiful gates of our lives. Begging for alms, even when they don't realize they are not asking for the thing they need the most. Even when we don’t notice them, or look at them intently… they are still there. 

The Lord has given you what they need the most! He has called you, poured out His love in your heart, and gifted you for such a time as this to meet the needs of those around you.

Notice Peter, said, “I don’t have what you are asking for, but what I do have I give you.” What did he give him? 

Right! Jesus. So. Do. You. Peter prayed a very simple prayer. He was not discouraged by what he felt he did not have or what he lacked. He recognized one thing that is also true for us. God thirsts for souls. He thirst for the love of his children. He thirsts through us. And in God’s infinite love and mercy, he allows us to participate in the great work of salvation. 

You may feel like what you do, or where you serve is insignificant. But that’s not true. You may feel like you have nothing unique to give, but you volunteer anyway! You may feel like you are searching for how better to serve the Church... But you just are not sure how. Maybe you have been serving and you are wondering, what difference has it made? Wherever you are, do not doubt that you have been given your own, “neither silver nor gold, but what I do have I give you”.

You have the silver and gold that the world needs most. Similar to Peter and John, you are an “apostle.” Don’t get too excited, its a little “a.” But still, whatever, however, wherever you serve in the Church, and perhaps even more importantly, how you live your faith in the world, are important in the building up of the Church. In that sense once again, you are necessary. You have been created, called and gifted to for such a time as this. To show forth the love of God in the world in a way unique to you.

In one of our favorite books, I BELIEVE IN LOVE, which is a retreat based on the life and teachings of St Therese of Lisieux, Fr Jean d’Elbee affirms, “Never doubt that you are an apostle.” In other words, don’t give in to discouragement. He roots this declaration in the words of Christ himself : “Abide in me and I in you for apart from me you can do nothing. Abide in me and I in you and you WILL bear much fruit” (John 15:5).

He does not promise that you will see it! But he does promise that when you abide, like Peter and John, you will bear fruit. Fr d’Elbee goes on to say that it’s good to pray, “Give me souls take all else away.” Many great saints have prayed this same prayer. But, Fr d’Elbee goes one step farther by declaring, “Its even better to pray, ‘Lord thank you for the souls that have been won by me (through my witness, prayers, example and service) simply because you promised me they would.’” You will bear fruit. You make a difference.

What’s your part? Abiding. Looking intently. Allowing the Holy Spirit to enkindle the fire of God’s love in your heart so that HE may renew the face of the earth through you. 

Wherever you serve, in whatever way, the same is true. It’s true for all disciples of Christ. 

St Paul stresses this as well in 1 Corinthians 12. We all have gifts. Some may get the status, some may get the glory, or as is often the case in leadership, some may get the complaints… But all are necessary. 

St Therese reminds us of this as well,  “Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love.” Never doubt the power of a simple smile and a kind word! Often they are critical ingredients in looking intently at a world full of crippled beggars.

In being here tonight, in serving Mater Dei Parish over this last year, and however long you have served the parish, and in whatever way you have served, in a way unique to each one of you, you also have helped, if you will forgive a good metaphor, the crippled beggar to walk. You have shared, in a way unique to you, the love of Christ with others. Your silver and gold. 

But, there is still more! And it has to do with renewing the Church. In us all becoming who God created us to be. I mentioned there are a lot of crippled beggars in our lives. That’s true. Im one of them. So are you. We all are! And so, I’m gonna leave you with a bit of a challenge. 

I hear a lot of negative talk about the state of the Church. But, I am not discouraged by that. God likes to bring forth new life in the midst of our mess. He also likes to make us a part of his plan. He only needs our “yes.” 

Earlier I mentioned that God’s not calling any of you to be the next St Francis, and that’s true. However, there is a call of St Francis that I think remains true for us today. And it applies to our Scripture plassage. 

God said to St Francis, “Go rebuild my Church.” What did he do, he picked up a broom. Learned how to lay bricks and roll paint (a little bit of a twenty first century retelling on that one). He served the people right in front of him that were the most in need. Long story short, he started right where he was. THAT was his silver and gold. It’s yours too! 800 years later, he is still rebuilding the Church. But again, he did so by starting right where he was. Again, that was his silver and gold.

When we give the silver and gold we do have, when we commit our lives, deeper and deeper, to living the life of an apostle what happens?

Let’s return to our Scripture passage!

Then Peter took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles grew strong. He leaped up, stood, and walked around, and went into the temple with them, walking and jumping and praising God. When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the one who used to sit begging at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, and they were filled with amazement and astonishment at what had happened to him.

This is what the world needs most. This is what the world is really asking for. And you have it in abundance!

If you would like to hear more on this Scripture passage, check out our podcast episode available here!

You Are Not the Sum of Your Accomplishments

Today, I am so thankful for my knowledge of the truth. I am thankful that there is more to life than the small moments that come and go. The moments that are so easy to take for granted are not the only valuable things that our life holds but there is more.

This past week, I had the opportunity to fly back to my Alma Mater to visit with friends and to walk at my graduation ceremony. That week was made up of so many small moments and it culminated at the end with my Commencement ceremony on May 13.

The week flew by. I was constantly with my friends and going back to my favorite places and staying up late trying to enjoy the limited time that I had with them. But I found myself thinking about just how short the time was.

I reminisced with friends about when we first met and how quickly the time seemed to have flown by for us. Four years is such a short amount of time in the grand scheme of life, and yet many people define themselves and their success by the few years they spend in college. But it all comes to an end in less than one minute when they announce your name and you walk across a stage. Then you have the whole rest of your life ahead of you and your largest accomplishment behind you. And we wonder why so many people in our society are so unhappy in their day-to-day adult lives. Why so many people lack a sense of purpose.

As I flew home from Steubenville yesterday and had time to think about my life and my accomplishments. I felt a sense of loss for the life I knew in Steubenville. I don’t know when I will be back, when I will see some of my best friends again. I wished I could have just frozen time and lived that life forever.

Unlike most of my peers who walked with me this weekend, I knew what my every day looked like before I crossed the stage, since I’ve been living it for four months already. My days in Iowa are not as exciting as they were in Steubenville. I don’t spontaneously go out with friends anymore, I don’t stay up late every night talking to my best friends who live down the hall from me. I don’t spend hours of my day sitting in a public place surrounded by the hustle and bustle of people coming and going.

My days consist of waking up early, praying, working in a quiet office, eating dinner while I watch half an episode of a tv show, reading a book, and being in bed by 9pm. It’s not exciting, and most people might think it’s depressing, and while the adjustment was hard I really love my quiet life now.

But if I had let my life add up to walking across that stage this weekend, I would hate my current life. It seems so unrewarding from the outside. I can just hear the voice of someone I knew in college asking me what on earth I do for fun if I don’t party, and from his point of view my life probably seems rather boring and lonely and tiresome. But I quite like my life.

My point is, if my point of view was a little different, I would be utterly depressed at my state in life right now. I just celebrated one of the biggest accomplishments that I will ever have in my life and if I let my life add up to that one minute on Saturday, there would be nothing else for me now. But we are so lucky that this is not all there is to life. I still have purpose even if I am no longer working towards a degree.

Every person in the Church has a common mission, it is to be a saint and to help as many other people as we can to also be saints. It’s easier for me to find ways to work towards this mission than it might be for you since I work for the Church, but you also can live out this mission in whatever your profession or vocation is.

God has given you a unique gift. You’ve used those gifts to get to where you are, to get your own degree, or your dream job, or a promotion, etc. Now you are called to continue to use it for the rest of your life. To get to heaven and to drag along your families, your friends, your coworkers, and whoever else you might encounter.

We were made to know, love, and serve God. We have purpose outside of worldly accomplishments that culminate in one moment where you receive recognition. Our worldly accomplishments are good and can often aid us in working towards our mission, but our life is not the sum of our worldly accomplishments.

When we make our life the sum of these big accomplishments, we settle for less that what we are made for, and as a result it is easy to lose our sense of purpose. Not only do we settle for less but we also often fail to see the dignity of the people who have accomplished less than us. We often think we have earned a higher place in society based on our accomplishments and we fail to value those who are not on that “level,” deeming them to be less than, undesirable, and unworthy.

We must learn to see that there is more to life than these accomplishments and these little moments that we use to prove our value. The fact is that we are valuable because God has created us with dignity and He loves us. We are worthy because He has made us so.

When we can see our own value through the eyes of the Lord and not the eyes of the world, we begin to see the value of every person we encounter through His eyes, and in that we learn to love as He loved, to give as He gave, and to serve as He served.

And when we can do that, we can accomplish the mission we were put on this earth to do.

Originally found on the “Joyfully His” blog. Shared by our Draw Near contributor, EmmaLee Miklosovic. Find the original blog here.

The Resurrection is not the End

There is always more of the Lord.

It’s currently the Easter season. We made it through Lent and through the death and resurrection of Jesus, but it doesn’t end there.

I grew up celebrating Seder with my family. We would gather in a fancy banquet hall (there are a lot of us) and celebrate the passover service, the passover of Jesus who it the Lamb of God, the sacrifice of the unblemished Lamb for our salvation.

I admit that as a child most of the symbolism and prayers went over my head. I was there for my Grandmother’s Matzo and the Sparkling Grape Juice that we only ever had at that celebration. But as I grew older, I invested more time in understanding what we were celebrating. We were celebrating the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

In the ceremony we pray this prayer:

“Had he brought us out from Egypt, and not executed judgment against them

It would have been enough for us.

Had he executed judgment against them, and not divided the sea for us

It would have been enough for us.

Had he divided the sea for us, and not drowned our oppressors in it

It would have been enough for us.

Had he drowned our oppressors in it, and not helped us forty years in the desert

It would have been enough for us.

Had he helped us forty years in the desert, and not fed us manna

It would have been enough for us.

Had He fed us manna, and not brought us to Mount Sinai

It would have been enough for us.

Had he brought is to Mount Sinai, and not given us the law

It would have been enough for us.

Had he given us the law, and not brought us into the promised land

It would have been enough for us.

Had He brought us into the promised land, and not given us the temple

It would have been enough for us.

Had He given us the temple, and not sent us His son, the Messiah

It would have been enough for us.

Had He sent us His son, and not given Him up to die for our sins on the cross

It would have been enough for us.

Had He give up His son to die on the cross, and not raised Him from the dead in victory

It would have been enough for us.

Had He raised Him from the Dead, and not sent us His Holy Spirit,

It would have been enough for us.”

When I woke up on Easter Sunday this year and put on Praise and Worship at top volume, I had this prayer on my mind and the thought came to me,

“Today is the Resurrection, but there’s even more coming.”

This prayer from the Seder Meal encourages us to reflect on the goodness of God. To appreciate all the good he has done for us in the past, all the ways He saved His people even when we were undeserving. But I think this prayer also gives us a way to remember the good he will continue to do through the rest of our lives.

I often let myself settle for less than what the Lord wants for me. I grew up at Christ the King Catholic Church in Ann Arbor, MI which is a Charismatic parish. I grew up comfortable raising my hands in prayer, comfortable praising the Lord as loud as I could, and in college I lost a lot of that. I stopped praying “Come Holy Spirit.” throughout the day. I stopped going to praise and worship. I would sit to pray but I wouldn’t sit long enough to really let Him in, only long enough to check prayer off my to-do list.

The Lord had done good things in my life, but I wasn’t open to more.

I had settled for less than what the Lord wanted for me.

After I posted my last blog, my Grandmother texted me. She said,

“It does my heart good to see you responding to the Lord about very important things even at your young age. It’s taken me SO long to get where I am and I feel like I need two more lifetimes to really get it!…”

And she shared some beautiful life lessons she had learned with me.

I responded to her with this realization: The journey of getting to know the Lord is lifelong, there is always more to learn, more grace to be received, there’s always somewhere deeper to dive into. And that’s one of the most beautiful things about life.

Could you imagine if it was one and done? If Jesus said, “I rose from the dead and that’s it. I’m going to heaven and you guys can figure out the rest for yourselves.”

Or if he had said, “I only give you grace one time, so other than that you’re on your own.”

To put it simply, we would be screwed if that was the case. We can’t do life without His grace, there’s no point if not for Love Himself.

But He didn’t leave us alone. He gave us the Sacraments. He sent us the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2) He is walking with us, constantly teaching us.

So this is a reminder that there is always more.

The Lord’s love doesn’t end with the Resurrection, the Resurrection is the beginning. It’s the beginning of a new life, and when we unite ourselves with Christ who rose from the dead and we open our hearts to His Holy Spirit, there is an unlimited amount of grace for us.

We often treat Easter as an end. It’s the end of Lent, “thank God I can eat Chocolate again.” It’s the end of the reign of death. And while these things are true, they are not the limit.

That’s the beauty of God’s Infinity.

There is always more.

Our journey of faith doesn’t end with one conversion moment, but it’s a series of conversions that allows us to continually grow.

God knows how we work as human beings. He knows that sometimes we need an extra push, that sometimes it takes 7000 reminders to learn something, that sometimes we need to experience hurt to really learn a lesson.

He meets us where we are and then he walks with us as we continue on in our lives.

Conversion is ongoing. To be a saint we need to be willing to have not one conversion but one million conversions, because He always has more.

When we settle for less than what He has for us and say, “there’s nothing more to know,” we give into pride. It’s us saying we don’t need Him anymore. And that is never not the case.

This Easter Season, as Pentecost approaches, open yourselves to the “more” that God has for you. Stop settling for what you think he wants, or what you think He is. Dive deeper. Invite the Holy Spirit in. Ask for a new conversion.

He wants more for you, so he won’t disappoint you when you ask for it.

God has so much He wants to do. He’s doing beautiful things in the world and in the Church, and He will do beautiful things through you.

Come Holy Spirit.

We’re ready for more.

Originally found on the “Joyfully His” blog. Shared by our Draw Near contributor, EmmaLee Miklosovic. Find the original blog here.

TRUE Unconditional Love

(Minor spoilers for the book Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid are in this post. So if you want to read it, be aware of that).

This week, I have been reflecting on unconditional love.

Naturally, the Triduum brought this on, the time of year when we reflect on the great love of Christ. But a book I just read also brought this to my mind. It's called Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

Daisy Jones & the Six is a historical fiction about a rock band taking place in the 1970’s. There is much more depth to it than I expected and I would argue that it changed my life. It changed the way that I see unconditional love.

Through the story you follow the relationship of the lead singer, Billy Dunne, and his wife, Camila. They go through struggles in their marriage like crazy as Billy takes his work very seriously and struggles in the drug and party scene of the 70’s. Camila never once gives up on him.

Most people would say that Billy’s mistakes and actions are unforgivable. He cheats on his wife, he misses his oldest daughter’s birth, and so much more. And, as we learn as he gives his perspective, he does all this in an effort to push Camila away because he believes she deserves better than him. He does not think he’s good enough to be her husband or a father. Yet Camila always fought for him. She never let him run away. Every time Billy fell short she called him on to be better, she pushed him to grow in ways he never would have before.

Billy did some terrible things. Seriously awful. And yet Camila never gave up on him. Where most people would have left him and let him dig his own hole, she always chose him.

That’s how the Lord treats us. He chooses us. No matter what.

On Good Friday, at the hour of Mercy, I sat down to journal about the Crucifixion. I reflected on the unconditional love and mercy of Jesus as he gave his life for me even though I don’t deserve it. In fact, I actively push Him away, just like Billy pushed away Camila. And Jesus fights for me the way Camila fights for billy. He pursues a relationship with me even when I actively avoid one with him.

As I was reflecting on this I was thinking about how I have been shown this in my life. For a long time I struggled to find authentic friendship. Middle school was a whirlwind of friend drama at school and failed friendships. Then in high school I thought I found really authentic friends and then many of those fell off as well. I was left hurt and broken because I thought I would never find good friends who truly loved me.

I struggled to understand the love of God because anytime I made a mistake I lost my best friends.

In my mind, anyone who’d seen the worst parts of me up and left without a second thought.

Obviously, I had family. But family is different. It feels required to love family even when you don’t always get along. It’s not the same type of choice to love your parents and siblings as it is with friends. The option to leave is much more complicated in a family, so the love they showed me felt like it didn’t count. (And this is obviously untrue, but I still struggled to understand true unconditional love because of my perspective on this.)

But in college I joined a household. To put it simply, a household is a group of men or women committed to living a life of discipleship—a life with Christ—together. Each semester we sign a covenant that outlines how we will live. My household committed to living a life of Humility, Genuineness, and Unconditional Love… three virtues I struggle with most.

These three pillars of our households life are intertwined. You cannot have one without the other. So I did my best to understand and practice them. Though, I'm afraid it's taken a long time to really understand them.

My spring semester of my senior year, I got into a huge fight with my roommate. The details are unimportant, but my roommate and I didn’t speak to each other for a full week. I convinced myself that I had done nothing wrong and that I should not be the one to apologize. I pushed all the blame on her and allowed the very small issue to completely separate us.

I was sad and hurt and angry because in my mind when you stop talking that means the friendship is on it’s way out. That’s how it always was for me before. No matter if I tried to fix it or if I fought for it, the other person always gave up. I projected the hurt from those other friendships onto what was going on with my friend and me, I assumed reaching out was pointless because in the end she wouldn’t want to be my friend.

But, I realized that I needed to get over myself and reach out. We couldn’t avoid each other forever since we lived together.

So, I texted her and we made time to talk about what was going on and things were resolved. I expected things to be awkward and for things to not go back to normal. I expected that we might not talk much over the summer and that once I graduated that we would stop talking all together. I didn’t want this to happen, but it’s what had always happened before so I assumed that it would be the same.

It was not. My roommate continued to reach out over the summer and we continued to be friends through my last semester and when I graduated. And as I was sitting and praying on Good Friday I realized that she was the one friend I’d had who truly showed me real unconditional love. The one who had seen my absolute worst aimed at her, who had received actual frustration and unjust anger from me and still pursued an authentic relationship with me. And suddenly I saw Jesus in her. She became the truest example of Christ’s love in my life.

Unconditional love isn’t just the love you have for friends who always agree with you. It’s not just the love of a friend who forgives you when you accidentally say something stupid. It’s the friend who you are so upset with that you don’t speak to them for days and yet they’re ready to completely forgive you no matter what wrong you committed against them.

There were many ways I was undeserving of my friend's forgiveness. The amount of time I held onto my anger, the way that I had approached the situation, the length of time I held onto my pride, etc. But she still forgave me and wanted to continue to have a relationship with me. If that’s not the love of Jesus I don’t know what is.

The Lord loves us and fights for us not only in our best moments, nor only in our mediocre moments, but in our very worst moments. Our sins become his physical crucifixion and he still loves and redeems us. How wonderful is that?

My hope is that one day I can love the way my friend has loved me. I’m slowly learning how to do that and how to forgive the people who have hurt me the most and to love them even better, but I know with God’s grace I’ll get there eventually. For now, I will let the love of Christ penetrate my heart and as I grow in understanding of it I will learn to give in the same way.

To give to the point of being willing to be cut by other peoples sharp edges.

To give to the point of willing the best for the people who have caused the deepest wounds in my life.

To give the way Camila gave to Billy.

To give the way my friend has given to me.

Know of His great love for you, even when you cannot love yourself. He is there and He will never stop fighting for you. He will never leave you.

Originally found on the “Joyfully His” blog. Shared by our Draw Near contributor, EmmaLee Miklosovic. Find the original blog here.

Good Friday - Your Wedding Day

EmmaLee Miklosovic

My relationship with Jesus changed drastically when I learned the way Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross parallels with an ancient Jewish wedding.

When I first started reading the Broken Way by Anne Voskamp she talked about what a traditional ancient Jewish proposal looked like, and how the father of the man would pour a chalice of wine and offer it to his son who would offer it to the woman he was to marry and he would say “This cup is a new covenant in my blood which I offer to you.”

Jesus offers us a Marriage Covenant at the last supper.

Wow.

As someone who has been single for most of my life and has let that define me for a good portion of that time, this was insane for me to read.

This was when I began to see my relationship with the Lord as a romance, a RomCom, if you will.

I have always wanted to be pursued by a man and to fall in love, as most people want. I never found it with any of the guys I knew — I had a bad habit of looking for love in the wrong places for awhile and was left feeling very empty and alone. I was left believing that I wasn’t worth loving, or I wasn’t good enough for a romantic relationship. I felt like I was going to have to settle for less than what I really wanted. So to hear that the Lord offered a marriage covenant to his disciples at the last supper… no, scratch that.

To hear that He offers ME a marriage covenant at every Mass I go to — that was just so unbelievable to me.

He thought I was worthy of His love — the most perfect love.

How could He think that I was worthy? I was only an imperfect girl who found herself far away from Him more often than she would like to admit. But still, he chose me. He chose to love me.

So approaching the Triduum, this is what I am praying about. The marriage covenant offered to me at the last supper. The consummation of the marriage covenant on the cross. The salvation won for me through that gift of love.

And all the Lord asks of me is to receive that and choose to love Him in return — which is all I could have ever wanted in this life, to love and to be loved.

Mass holds a whole new meaning to me now. It’s not a place that I go because I have to, but because that’s where I intimately encounter the One I love.

As with any RomCom, there’s a little drama. I am not perfect and I find reasons to push the Lord away and to turn my back on Him, and yet he still pursues me. He’s the one who runs after me in the rain when I run away, the one who shows up at my doorstep with flowers even though I am the one at fault for whatever conflict, He's the one who loves me no matter what.

Even though I turn away, he never leaves me.

When he offered that marriage covenant, he meant that he would be there through it all.

As we go into Holy Week, I want to encourage you to pray with the Lord as the bridegroom of the Church. As YOUR bridegroom.

His death and resurrection was His marriage to the Church. It is His marriage to you. It is the moment that he gave everything he had to know you and love you, as a husband gives all that he has to His wife, all we’re asked to do is to return that love.

Let the Lord love you this holy week. Lean into your lenten fasts and let Him fill the space where those things should be. Take a little extra time in silence before the Eucharist and let Him show you the love He has for you. This is the holiest week in the year. Embrace it.

Let the Lord love you.

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This blog post originally appeared on the Joyfully His Blog with Emmalee Miklosovic, and is used with permission.

Finding Myself: My Thoughts on Personal Vocation

EmmaLee Miklosovic

Throughout the year of 2022, I was single. I had dated someone for a short time the year before and it had not been what I had dreamed of. I had a lot of fun with him, but there were things that didn’t pan out how I wanted them to. Plus I was afraid to communicate certain things to him and eventually I felt pretty trapped in the relationship — though I didn’t want to admit it to myself.

I had been so convinced that I was ready for a relationship. I had never dated before, nor had I ever fallen in love (except with Jesus haha) and I was of the mindset that because I was 20 it was embarrassing that I had never dated. I wanted to be pursued by a man, and known by one.

After this relationship, though, I had found that I was not as ready for a relationship as I thought I was. I don’t regret having dated this guy at all, even though it was a humbling experience. I think I needed this experience to realize I needed to take time to focus on Christ as a single woman.

I had never intentionally done this before. I was single by circumstance, not by choice, and so I had never really leaned into my singleness. But this experience of dating made me realize how necessary that is to embracing an intimate relationship with Christ and to serving Him to the best of my ability.

Over the summer I made the decision to take six months to be single and focus on my relationship with the Lord. The purpose had partially been in order to discern my vocation, whether or not I felt called to get married or to go into religious life.

Over the course of that time, my perspective on vocation changed quite a bit. I went from thinking I had to decide whether or not to be religious or get married, to just wanting to know who Christ is calling me to be. This seems like common sense that you would need to discern who you are before discerning how you will spend the rest of your life, but it is very common in Catholic culture to just focus on the state in life vocation of priest, nun, or married and then let everything else follow.

That is not to say this is a bad perspective or anything, but I think in many ways we rush into a vocation because we think we have to, when God has created us for something specific. I think we focus too much on the what we’re supposed to be and not the who we are.

I took a class during my last semester of college called Human and Spiritual Integration. We spent time reflecting on death, on our personal wounds, and on our personal vocations and I found it to be very eye opening — I wish everyone could take that class.

As I have moved to Iowa, I moved with the intention of taking the time to find myself. Not in the secular way of thinking, but I want to know myself as the Lord knows me, what He made me for, who He created me to be. St. Bonaventure has a beautiful quote which says, “Every creature is a divine word because it proclaims God.” We discussed this idea in my class and I have continued to reflect on it as I have moved and started my adult life. What is my “word” so to speak? How do I uniquely proclaim God through who I am?

Dr. Joshua Miller and Luke Burgis have a book titled Unrepeatable where they discuss vocation in a similar way to how I now grasp it. Chapter 3 of their book begins with the story of St. Gianna Molla who had cancer when she was pregnant and in order to protect her baby she refused cancer treatments and ended up giving her life for her child. They discussed how her sainthood did not simply come down to the choice she made to save her baby, but it was a result of the series of choices she made throughout her life to become who God was calling her to be. To live her personal vocation in life.

They go on to talk about what personal vocation is. How a persons personal vocation is the way that the Lord personally calls us to follow Him. It’s more than merely choosing between a state of life, it goes deeper than just deciding to get married. It’s God’s word spoken in us. It’s the sum of what our life had been, “the thread that runs through an entire life from beginning to end.” (Miller, Burgis; 78). It is who we are.

We each are a word of God, and my goal as I have moved away from home and begun my career in ministry has been to find my word. Not to find my state in life vocation, but to find the root of who I am, who the Lord has created me to be.

It is a slow process because I have to patiently take the time to reflect on my life, and allow God into every moment. I have to be intentional about taking time in silence and allowing the Lord to speak (which I am sometimes very bad at). I have to be willing to confront my imperfection and my woundedness. But the Lord will work in and through the time I take for it.

I think it is extremely important to look at discernment this way though, to take the time to figure out who we are, who God has created us to be. I think many people get to their personal vocation after choosing their state in life vocation, and so I don’t think it’s completely wrong to go about it that way. But there is a huge importance to having an intimate relationship with God and in knowing Him, coming to know ourselves.

For so long I have put my state in life vocation before taking the time to truly know who I am in the eyes of the Father. This has caused a lot of pain in my life because I have felt unworthy of romantic love, and not holy enough for religious life. I have felt this insane pressure to make a decision about my vocation as soon as I can because I am an adult and should have my life figured out.

None of these are true, but they are within Catholic culture. We should be forming young people, not to be pressured to make hasty decisions about their state in life vocation, but to find their personal vocation. We should be aiding them in strengthening their relationship with God so they can see who they are meant to be, not what they are meant to be. The state in life vocation will naturally follow what our personal vocation is.

I am no expert by any means, I am still learning who I am. I am young and I am impatient and so it will be a long process for me to confidently be able to say who I am, who the Lord has created me to be. I know that the Lord is working in my life, though, and it will be made clear eventually.

It is a matter of allowing the Lord to guide you, through prayer and having an intimate relationship with Him in the Eucharist, and seeking to follow Him in all you do. Seeking spiritual direction is a great way to help discernment as well, or even having someone to walk with you on the journey. And it is a matter of learning to surrender everything to Him so He can work in you however He intends. He will guide you to where you are meant to be — trust in Him and allow His will to become yours.

He knows you better than you know yourself and He will never lead you to a place where you will not be fulfilled.

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This blog post originally appeared on the Joyfully His Blog with Emmalee Miklosovic, and is used with permission.

Entering the Desert

EmmaLee Miklosovic

One of my favorite assignments from college was, believe it or not, a final. It was an open book and open note final, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it was easy. I sat in the library for probably 6 hours working on it during the fall of 2020.

The assignment was to reflect on paragraphs 538-540 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church which is a section that is titled “Jesus’s Temptations”. Essentially, we had to break it down and connect it with scripture, and each of the four sections of the Catechism (Profession of Faith, Christian Morality, the Sacramental Life, and Prayer) and write how we would teach the section. I spent hours reading this passage and finding how it connects to each part of my faith and that 6 hours changed my life.

With lent beginning this week, I thought it would be appropriate to share a reflection on the temptation of Jesus and why it should be significant to us because “By the solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the Mystery of Jesus in the desert.” (CCC 540) This reflection is the fruit of that final and my continued reflection on Jesus in the desert.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 4, Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit to the desert where he fasts for forty days and nights and his time in the desert ends with three temptations from the Devil. Jesus rejects each of Satan’s temptations without fail and stays completely faithful to the Father.

I often find myself asking the question, why would Jesus, the God of the universe, put Himself through the sufferings that we experience as human beings? He could have saved us another way if He wanted to, so why did He choose the hardest, most painful way? Why would he willingly spend 40 days in the scorching heat of the desert with no food or water or company. Then, at the end of those 40 days, when he is tired, and hungry: why would he allow Himself to be tempted.

As I studied the section of the Catechism which discusses this scripture (with these questions in mind), I remember being very struck by this fact: Jesus experienced every part of humanity, and so He has a beautiful understanding of what our lives are like. He experienced physical pain, so when you are in physical pain he understands what you’re going through. He experienced emotional pain so He can understand yours. He experienced temptation so He can understand why we so easily fall into sin. I just remember sitting there, in the library, thinking, “He understands me, REALLY understands me.”

There is a beautiful solidarity He has with us in this experience of temptation at the end of His 40 days. It explains how he can be so merciful, because he knows what we go through. It is important to note that:

He not only allowed Himself to be tempted, but He overcame every temptation that was thrown at Him.

Does this mean we should be hard on ourselves when we fail? NO. It means that we need to rely on Him when we experience temptation because He is our salvation from sin. We cannot overcome sin on our own, that’s WHY Jesus came.

His defeat of Satan through this direct rejection of His temptations gives us hope because HE gives us the strength we need to fight temptation.

In this passage, Christ shows us the importance of prayer in our lives. We must pray consistently if we wish to avoid temptation. Jesus’ temptation was preceded by 40 days of prayer and fasting in the desert, which strengthened Him to face Satan’s temptations. The Catechism states, “Prayer is a battle; only by keeping watch in prayer can one avoid falling into temptation” (CCC 2612). Jesus shows us this by his own life when he entered the desert for 40 days.

As I stated before: If we are to overcome our sin, we have to rely on Christ’s strength. We do this through a relationship through Him, by offering our lives to Him every day through prayer.

This is why fasting is so important. When we fast we give up something good (like food) and offer that sacrifice to the Father so that we (or someone else) would be strengthened by His grace. And if we are willing to say, “no,” to something good, how much more willing will we be to say, “no,” to sin then? Through fasting, we prayerfully strengthen our will to become like the Father’s just as Jesus did because we allow Jesus to be the source of our nourishment.

In this scripture (and through all of scripture, really) we see how temptation works. Satan uses temptation to cultivate doubt in God’s goodness and in His plan. It hinders our trust in God and is meant to blind us to the reality of God’s good desires for us. When we pray and fast consistently, we are able to see the Lord’s perspective in all things — and we are no longer limited to our own perspective. Cultivating a relationship with Christ, seeking to know God personally and relying on the strength of the Holy Spirit is the only way that we can overcome temptation and the way it blinds us. This is why prayer and fasting are so essential.

We fast during lent in order to learn to lean on the Lord. We fast to prepare and strengthen our hearts for the greatest gift Christ gives us through His Paschal Mystery — our salvation. We fast to unite ourselves to the cross and to the mission of Christ and the will of the Father.

The Gospel reading on this coming Sunday (the first Sunday of Lent) will be the passage about Jesus’ temptation. Try to find some time this week to read through it and pray about how you can enter into the mystery of Christ in the desert. How can you learn to lean on God’s strength? What do you need to let go of in order to trust Him more?

He is with you always.

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This blog post originally appeared on the Joyfully His Blog with Emmalee Miklosovic, and is used with permission.