Wednesday of the Second Week of Advent

"They will run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint."

Most often, I usually lose to my 8-year-old in those board games wherein one, upon drawing the wrong card, landing on the wrong spot or being “landed upon” by someone else, must return to start or near the beginning. Oftentimes my life in Christ looks like these games. I think I am making great strides in growing nearer and nearer His Sacred Heart, with each Eucharist, receiving His very heart of Most Pure Love that is Truth. With each Eucharist I consume, I pray He, in turn, will inflame and consume my heart and burn away all that is not love. Then, suddenly, great joys and deep sorrows alike, celebrations and tragedies, come along, knocking me off the straight and narrow path, distracting my eyes off of Him. I am humbly reminded not to worry about “where” I am in my strides toward Heaven… how near or far… but rather that I pick myself up and keep walking… keep running … toward Him, continually keeping my eyes fixated upon Him, in full faith and hope with my hands and feet preoccupied with serving my neighbor in full charity.

Each dawn of each new day offers a new, strengthened-by-Him opportunity to begin again… to offer Him sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving, to pray without ceasing, “to lay down one's life for one's friends” and to remain in His love, striving to imitate His love in the world. Laying down our own life before others, sharing our past successes and failures, our finding Christ, and our hopes in Christ, point the faces of others in our lives toward Christ. Evangelization is perfected in the Truth we know best – that being our own life both with and without Him continuously at the center. It is in laying down our own life for serving others that we find our most perfect, loving image of Christ within us. His yoke becomes an increasingly lighter burden as we strive for a true meek and humble heart, like His, that seeks to relieve the suffering of others daily. He promises we will not grow weary, nor faint… and, in the end, He will give us rest.