‘Tis the season for trying new things, participating in new programs, and bettering ourselves through search of the ‘best version of ourselves.’ The ‘New Year, New Me’ manta is usually centered around physical, social, or fiscal health, but for many Christians there is also a desire for a return to the spirituality and religiosity that may have been lacking in our lives. If you know where to look, there are a multitude of prayer challenges, monthly or yearly programs, and books that promise to help if not change your relationship with God. Many of these are all very good! My own spiritual life has greatly benefited from the Word on Fire Bible (all Volumes that have been released) and The Bible in a Year with Fr. Mike Schmitz by Ascension Press. Conversely some are not very good, and prudent discernment needs to be applied in selecting the voices that you will allow to influence your spiritual life. But as we rightly choose to work on our spiritual lives, we need to be careful not to feel satisfaction in the completion of a process, but rather only to find success in a deeper relationship with our Heavenly Father and His Children.
When St. Theresa of Calcutta was asked by a priest, “How can I be Holy?” Her response was simply, “If you have the desire, God will do the rest.” The Church also gives us an antiphon in ordinary time for the Cantle of Mary, “If you hunger for holiness, God will satisfy your longing, good measure, and flowing over.” Holiness is not found in a completion of a challenge or a novena. Holiness is first and foremost rooted in the desire for God.
In my own life, I have found this sentiment to be true. The first day that I began teaching Religion in a Catholic high school, I committed to my own personal program of visiting the Blessed Sacrament in the Chapel for a few minutes as the first thing I did when I got into the building and the last thing I did when I left. I intellectually knew that I could not give what I did not have, so I did the thing I knew I needed to do. I was successful in doing this for most if not all of the days I was there in my first year. Then for my Lenten penance, I upped my time in the chapel for an extra 10 minutes. It was in those Lenten moments that the extra time and sacrifice made me realize how much I did not want to be there. But committed to my personal promises and lenten fasting, my pride would not let me quit!
So I realized something needed to change. I knew I didn’t want to be in front of God, and that was a problem. So I started from the base level. I prayed each day that I was there for God to help me to desire to be there with Him. Nothing crazy happened. I did not become committed to long hours of adoration in the chapel. But as time went on, I began noticing that my time in the chapel was filled with peace. And as the years passed by, there was an increasing fondness for refuge I had found in front of Jesus. Naturally, my time there did increase, and it was in these increased moments that my desire to pray the Liturgy of the Hours (something that I had done as a seminarian but never loved) and read Sacred Scripture began to develop, and now they have become the pillars of my daily life, even without a daily chapel at my disposal now. I asked for something small, and God provided.
I am far from holy, but not as far as I was in those first years of teaching religion. And what God has shown me (reflected in the words of the saints and the wisdom of the Church) is that holiness does not come from achievement, it comes as a gift from God. In the moments when we realize how weak we are, we need to ask for His gift and He will give us what we need and more.
So it is good to do the programs! They help! But what we have to remember is that if at the very base level of our hearts we do not desire God, our programs will not bring us to holiness. Completion can be an attribute of Love, but it is not what it is in its essence. Love is centered on the gift of self, and we cannot truly do that unless God helps us. And as the perfect gentlemen, He will never impose Himself upon us, so we need to invite Him into our hearts. So as we embark on your new years resolution, our lenten fasting, or we have just left the confessional, we must remember that our programmatic solutions may help, but they must be rooted in the desire for God, for He will give us what we need and more.
