Humble Beginnings

Happy Thursday everyone!

I hope you all have some exciting weekend plans - even if you have a pile of homework to do. Can you believe Easter is almost here? I can remember Lent taking forever as a kid. Especially because my mother always decided that we would give up dessert as a family. Six weeks without sweets? How will I survive?

Thank you so much for coming back and reading the blog this week. Please feel free to comment below, or send me a personal message on Facebook. I would love to share any stories that you feel called to contribute to the blog.

Week 2: Humility

Deacon Ken started his talk by comparing our faith life to a battlefield. We are constantly battling to advance, and finding that we are only retaking ground that we have conquered in the past.

I am sure for most of us this is a resounding truth. There have been so many times in my life where I have been in the habit of reading the Bible every day, praying the Rosary regularly. Where I have felt God present in my daily life. Only to find myself struggling to even find five seconds to pray before falling off to sleep - losing that battleground.

I think it is inevitable for us to have desert seasons in our faith where we do find it harder to search for relationship with God. However, during the question period, Deacon Ken answered a question about how we can reduce this amount of ground lost. He shared examples of periods in his life in which he struggled, and encourages us to persevere in disciplines, as he tries to do.

Some disciplines in the Catholic faith Deacon Ken gave as examples:

Stations of the Cross
Liturgy of the Hours
Daily prayers
Going to mass on weekdays
Praying the Rosary
Regular Confession

Maybe a discipline for you can be turning off the music for fifteen minutes on your way to work. Maybe it can be as simple as throwing on the Armour of God.

I have often been caught in a state of guilt over my inability to stay in relationship with God, over my weakness. Once in Confession I decided to confess this, and the priest indicated that guilt is one of the worst sins. It keeps us from God because we are actively holding ourselves back from His mercy. We are rejecting our humility.

As Deacon Ken explained: God wants us to succeed, and we need Him to be successful. This takes a huge amount of humility, knowing how much we need Him, how much we are incapable of doing on our own. We get in our own way by denying that we need help, that we need grace.

The great Saints were not perfect, they were not holy on their own. They let God in, and He did His work in them, He made them successful.

God has the ability to make us strong, all He asks is for us to trust Him with our weakness, to stop hiding behind guilt, or whatever else we use. He knows us, intimately - He formed every part of us and He is not ashamed of our weakness. So why are we?

You might start with humble beginnings, simply opening up to God with how little you feel. Praying for five minutes a day, but making it deliberate. Nothing you have to offer God is too small, too insignificant. He takes whatever we have to give, and He treasures it.

God bless, Olivia Fischer