The snip above is from a quote from the former Superior General of the Jesuits, Pedro Arrupe. It is the quote I display on my Facebook page and also have it framed in my office.
Christina, a Catholic Charities Volunteer here in Buffalo who I have become close friends with over the last few months, wrote some of the most beautiful reflective words after meditating on Fr. Arrupe’s words on her blog “A Star in the Sky.”
I think we deploy distractions instead of faith because that’s what we’re used to, or we are not up to digging deeper within ourselves to expose that raw beauty and vulnerability. It’s easy to have a comfortable faith that begins and ends on Sundays. It doesn’t take much mental or emotional effort to throw money at charities. Sometimes we are afraid of finding the ugly things that dwell inside of us.
The truth is that it hurts to be vulnerable. I am trying, day by day, to fully open myself up to God to see all that’s in me- the irrational, immature, self-centered part of me, and have asked Him to help me rid myself of those things. And while it hurts to look at that part of myself, I feel the love of acknowledging the ugly and I know that with God, it is transformed to beauty.
The truth is that when we fall in love with who God calls us to be–well, that in fact makes our lives a whole lot harder. It’s a more challenging way to live, but once awakened to God’s call–can we ever live any other way?
Discerning who we are, what attracts us and most importantly, what we are in love with (not who, per se–but what) is indeed what will determine everything.
And that might lead you somewhere wonderful, that just might bring you bliss, and it just might get you killed too.
Let us pray for the freedom to fall in love with who we are and what we are called to. To be free from the fear we have in living lives of integrity and challenge and as Micah writes: to “act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly with your God.”