Arms Wide Open
Daily Readings for Monday 1st December
First Reading ~ Isaiah 2:1-5
First Reading ~ Isaiah 2:1-5
Psalm ~ Psalm 122: 1-2, 3-5, 6-7, 8-9
Gospel ~ Matthew 8:5-11
This Advent I'm learning - slowly and imperfectly - how to make room for a Babe in my heart and my life. This daily series at Ardent Devotion documents my journey with God's word throughout Advent, and the little ways in which He is revealing His Truth to me day by day. I invite you to join with me in committing to a Christ-filled Advent, so that we can arrive at the manger-side with wondrous hearts.
The 1st Monday of Advent
Through my early years of high school (heck, even through my late years of high school), I loathed group projects. They totally stressed me out. I was used to working alone, working hard and achieving highly as a result. But when I was thrown together with a group of others, most of whom lacked the same drive and desire for perfection, I found it incredibly hard to cope. My usual adopted strategy was to gently, deftly and sneakily maneuver the tasks so that I ended up with most of the work: that way, at least, it was back under my control. Delegation did not truly enter my vocabulary until part way through last year. And I still battle daily with that same temptation - the temptation to individualism.
Pope Francis emphasizes this point over and over again in Evangelii Gaudium: we must say NO to exclusivity, to individualism, to isolation. It is our duty as Christians to constantly throw ourselves into the battleground of the world, whatever the personal risk, in order to extend God's love to those who have not yet experienced it.
“Many try to escape from others and take refuge in the comfort of their privacy or in a small circle of close friends, renouncing the realism of the social aspect of the Gospel.” (EG 88)
Coming off the back of an incredibly transforming year of faith on NET, the temptation I'm experiencing is a desire to bubble-wrap myself: to presume myself more fragile than strong in what I have received, and so to withdraw from outreach; to surround myself only with the friends who are faith-filled and supportive. There are many old friends - from high school, extracurricular activities or even primary school - who I could invest in this summer. The trouble is, most of them aren't living Christ-filled lives. And the easy thing to do would be to move on from those friendship; to allow them to live their lives however they choose and continue on along my little path to sainthood without them. But Jesus did not come to Earth to rescue those who already knew Him. In the Gospel today, He re-affirmed that "many will come from East and West." People will arrive at His kingdom from many different walks of life - but most of them will arrive there because someone sought them out and extended the hand of faith to them.
In many ways, the walk to sanctity is necessarily a group project. Easy and lovely as it would be to only have to worry about one's own salvation, Christ demands much more of us. We are a communion of saints: a blessed fraternity of disciples: one holy family born of a loving father. And so if we ever want to arrive rejoicing at the house of the Lord - if we ever truly want to walk in His light - then we cannot walk alone.
We are called to reach out to others - to invite and exhort them to walk with us, rejoicing, to the house of the Lord. We're also called to intercede on their behalf. Sometimes, like the centurion's servant in today's Gospel, a person is incapable of approaching Jesus themselves because they lie deep in their woundedness, spiritual illness or lethargy. It is then that we are called, in all humility, to approach our Lord on their behalf and plead with Him for a miracle.
Oftentimes - in my own life at least - the hardest people to reach out to are the ones closest to us. For me returning home, the hardest call to evangelization is the vocation to share Jesus with my parents. The hardest people to entrust by intercession to His power for healing and renewal are my friends. Because now I'm on the real battleground; the trickier terrain. No longer am I fighting for strangers who come along to a NET retreat. No, now it gets personal. God is entrusting me with the souls of family and friends, trusting that I will fight for their salvation as hard as I fought for each precious soul that walked into a retreat. Now we're on the real battleground; so it's time to take up our swords.
It's a hard fight, and the personal cost is often high. But Jesus doesn't ask us to stay in our comfort zones, bubble-wrapped and surrounded by those who make our spiritual life easy. He calls us to throw ourselves into battle and open our arms - His arms - to those who are so desperately in need of His embrace.
Take some time to reflect: who in my life could I extend the invitation of faith to? What am I not doing to reach out to others?
Ask the Lord: Jesus, how can I truly reach out to invite others to walk in your light? How can I intercede on their behalf for healing?
Pray. Listen. Then go courageously to the people He brings to your heart, and open His arms to them.
In today's first reading, I was struck by the repeated use of the word "us": Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord.... that He may teach us His ways.... come, let us walk in the light of the Lord." Even the psalm echoed this thought: "Let us go rejoicing to the house of the Lord." The group pronoun really seemed to tug my conscience. I really felt the Lord challenging me in those words: are you throwing your arms wide open to embrace others on this walk to sanctity, or are you choosing to walk in the light of the Lord... alone?
Pope Francis emphasizes this point over and over again in Evangelii Gaudium: we must say NO to exclusivity, to individualism, to isolation. It is our duty as Christians to constantly throw ourselves into the battleground of the world, whatever the personal risk, in order to extend God's love to those who have not yet experienced it.
“Many try to escape from others and take refuge in the comfort of their privacy or in a small circle of close friends, renouncing the realism of the social aspect of the Gospel.” (EG 88)
Coming off the back of an incredibly transforming year of faith on NET, the temptation I'm experiencing is a desire to bubble-wrap myself: to presume myself more fragile than strong in what I have received, and so to withdraw from outreach; to surround myself only with the friends who are faith-filled and supportive. There are many old friends - from high school, extracurricular activities or even primary school - who I could invest in this summer. The trouble is, most of them aren't living Christ-filled lives. And the easy thing to do would be to move on from those friendship; to allow them to live their lives however they choose and continue on along my little path to sainthood without them. But Jesus did not come to Earth to rescue those who already knew Him. In the Gospel today, He re-affirmed that "many will come from East and West." People will arrive at His kingdom from many different walks of life - but most of them will arrive there because someone sought them out and extended the hand of faith to them.
In many ways, the walk to sanctity is necessarily a group project. Easy and lovely as it would be to only have to worry about one's own salvation, Christ demands much more of us. We are a communion of saints: a blessed fraternity of disciples: one holy family born of a loving father. And so if we ever want to arrive rejoicing at the house of the Lord - if we ever truly want to walk in His light - then we cannot walk alone.
It’s not about ME and my walk to sanctity
It’s about US and our walk to sanctity.
We are called to reach out to others - to invite and exhort them to walk with us, rejoicing, to the house of the Lord. We're also called to intercede on their behalf. Sometimes, like the centurion's servant in today's Gospel, a person is incapable of approaching Jesus themselves because they lie deep in their woundedness, spiritual illness or lethargy. It is then that we are called, in all humility, to approach our Lord on their behalf and plead with Him for a miracle.
Oftentimes - in my own life at least - the hardest people to reach out to are the ones closest to us. For me returning home, the hardest call to evangelization is the vocation to share Jesus with my parents. The hardest people to entrust by intercession to His power for healing and renewal are my friends. Because now I'm on the real battleground; the trickier terrain. No longer am I fighting for strangers who come along to a NET retreat. No, now it gets personal. God is entrusting me with the souls of family and friends, trusting that I will fight for their salvation as hard as I fought for each precious soul that walked into a retreat. Now we're on the real battleground; so it's time to take up our swords.
It's a hard fight, and the personal cost is often high. But Jesus doesn't ask us to stay in our comfort zones, bubble-wrapped and surrounded by those who make our spiritual life easy. He calls us to throw ourselves into battle and open our arms - His arms - to those who are so desperately in need of His embrace.
Take some time to reflect: who in my life could I extend the invitation of faith to? What am I not doing to reach out to others?
Ask the Lord: Jesus, how can I truly reach out to invite others to walk in your light? How can I intercede on their behalf for healing?
Pray. Listen. Then go courageously to the people He brings to your heart, and open His arms to them.
~~~
Hail and blessed be the hour and the moment at which the Son of God was born of a most pure Virgin, at a stable, at midnight in Bethlehem, in the piercing cold. At that hour vouchsafe, I beseech thee, to hear my prayer and grant my desires, through our Saviour Jesus Christ and His most blessed Mother.
AMDG
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