El último día

As I am preparing to leave the community here in Honduras and return home I have been reflecting on what I have learned and how I have grown. One of the common themes of this summer has been mediocrity vs. holiness. Christ says “you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all you soul, with all you mind and with all you strength.” (Mark 12:30) In other words, with your all everything. There is no middle ground. We either live our lives totally dedicated to Christ or we don’t. It's time for us, both Catholics and all Christians, to become who we say we are: followers of Christ. That means living the Gospel message, even the hard parts about the cross, loving our enemies, etc. What will it take to shake us out of our comfortable lives and wake up to the reality of heaven, hell, infinite love, truth, sin, and mercy? We need to ask God to transform our hearts. I’m not there yet, but I hope that at the end of my life I can say I was a true follower of Christ, lived totally for Him, trusted in His mercy and His plan and did all that is asked of His followers in the Gospel. And I hope I can say that at the end of this summer I am a little closer to that calling. It takes little steps. For instance, finding somewhere I can serve when I go back to school.