Saturday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
“as for the seed that fell on rich soil, they are the ones who, when they have heard the word, embrace it with a generous and good heart, and bear fruit through perseverance.”
Isn’t it true that, again and again, we must choose this Christian life as our way into Christ? It’s as if each day we get up we have to decide again—and perhaps most of the time we do it implicitly—that God is worth waiting for!
Yet who of us does not experience slack times when our enthusiasm, our patience, and our strength all lag? We feel like saying, ‘What’s the use!’
But, of course, we really cannot, realistically, see ourselves walking into the sunset to some other life! Not that we don’t dream about it sometimes, but we realize we are daydreaming.
One of the places we sell ourselves short concerns the ‘furniture’ of our mental life. We let it get cluttered with all kinds of thoughts. I’m not against a healthy imagination—it’s just not a place to live. We each need a place inside of us where we “live.” It’s a matter of finding something—a good book or a good app—which today, more than at any time in history is literally at our fingertips with all kinds of apps, etc., to help us to reflect and lead us to pray.
St. Francis de Sales gives us some good advice for persevering in our way:
In order to journey steadily, we must apply ourselves to doing well on the stretch of road immediately before us on the first day of the journey, and not waste time wanting to do the last lap of the way while we still have to make it through the first.
Reflection by Fr. Xavier Nacke, OSB
Posted in Articles for Ordinary Time, Daily Reflections