This Lent we are exploring together why one might choose to follow Christ and what it really means to be his disciple. One of the things that might help us to want to follow Christ is realizing that whether we have chosen to follow him yet or not, Christ is already with us. Especially in all of our experiences of being lost, afraid, misunderstood, or alone, he is always at our side. He never abandons us, even if we don’t recognize that he is there. We can find all the strength we need by looking for him, learning to recognize him, actively engaging in all of our life’s experiences and trusting that Christ is present in them. This week, three parishioners share their reflections on the question: In what experiences do you now recognize that Christ was with you, even if you weren’t aware of his presence at the time? 

Thinking about how to answer this question made me realize that I’m probably guilty of being a spiritual opportunist of sorts. Whenever I’ve experienced turbulence in my life--serious illness or death of a loved one, breakdown of a significant relationship, or even, well, literally turbulence on an airplane--I typically have sent up a smoke signal to Jesus (or God or Mary). In times of crisis, my inclination to pray for consolation or guidance or intervention has usually kicked in, leading to a sense of comfort, love, trust, and protection. I remember even as a young child loving the poem, “Footprints in the Sand,” and the concept of being carried by Jesus at the most difficult times in life. But what I don’t think I’ve been really aware of is that Jesus has been just as “there,” just as present, all the other times in my life, the countless moments that haven’t involved any particular crisis. Yet admittedly, it’s pretty rare for me to reach out in any consistent or meaningful way when I’m not in (short- or long-term) crisis mode. Maybe it’s a little like joining a gym for the sole purpose of losing weight within some finite window, versus exercising as a lifelong habit to feel your best, strongest, healthiest self. Considering how I answered this question makes me think I need to apply the same approach to faith, prayer, and a relationship with Jesus. Not merely turning to and relying on Jesus to carry me through life’s crises, but recognizing the “everyday” nature of his presence and reaching out far more routinely, without any particular need--relishing all the times when there are two sets of footprints in the sand.

One moment where I recognized Christ’s presence was when we were expecting our second child. I was sick and bedridden for the first several months. Unable to care for my two-year-old son, an army of family members arranged for his care. Meanwhile, friends and neighbors offered to babysit or bring food. Still more sent cards and handwritten prayers. I knew, in each of these acts of kindness, God was working with them and through them. I spent lots of time alone during those months, but never felt alone because God’s presence was so apparent in the thoughtfulness and generosity of others. My son recently asked what God looks like. I replied that I don’t know for sure, but I think he looks a little like Daddy, and a little like Nana, and a little like Noah’s Mom, and Ms. Lois, and countless others. Because we are each created in his image; he works through each of us; and beckons us to recognize his presence in each other. I hope that, during Lent, as you pursue a closer relationship with Christ, you are reminded through others that Christ is pursuing you, too--working in wonderful and mysterious ways to show you his abundant love.

It was during third grade when I felt in my soul all that I needed to live a very good life. Lying in the grass on that summer day, I gazed up at the sky and wondered what we are as humans and why we exist. I’d probably been told at St. Joseph grade school that we exist to love and serve God, but that message didn’t seem to sink in. I wondered if we were in an alternate universe or a dollhouse of sorts, where God acts as puppet master and monitors us for some sort of recreation. But then I had the experience of the awesome peace of lying in the grass and contemplating God’s divine plan that day. That peace was of course the love of God streaming through all of my senses. I had the answer then in third grade, although I did not realize it at the time--to live a good life requires total dependence on the love of God. It is simple in hindsight and has been figured out for generations: we need not wander in sin and desolation in search of fulfillment--we can achieve the best life by loving and serving God.  

Are you interested in offering one of these responses in the coming weeks? We’d love to include you! Please e-mail Kathy O’Leary for details on how to participate.

Take your next step: Journaling is a great form of prayer, whether you’re just beginning to pray or have been doing it all your life. It’s a wonderful way to reflect more deeply on what we feel and think, and to begin to lift that up to God. Each week of Lent, we are suggesting a journaling question to respond to. Find 15 minutes when you can be uninterrupted. Grab a piece of paper, find a notebook, or journal on your computer or phone. Any way you want to write is fine. Write at the top of the page: “In what experiences do I now recognize that Christ was with me, although I wasn’t aware of his presence at the time?” Write what comes from your heart. 

Lent is a great time to begin a relationship with Christ or to deepen your relationship with him. This Lent we are exploring together why one might choose to follow Christ and what it really means to be his disciple. To help us to do this, we are inviting several members of the New Roads Catholic Community each week to respond in an honest and personal way to the reflection question for the week. We hope that seeing the way a variety of parishioners respond to these questions will help you to reflect more deeply on the questions yourself. This week, four parishioners share their reflections on the question: Are you ready to follow Christ? 

In my wallet I carry this quote with me: "It is never too late to be who you might have been." I think we all reflect on what has gone on in our past spiritually and emotionally and think what we should have, could have, and would have done differently. Some things can never be changed....however, opening yourself up to a relationship with a forgiving and welcoming Jesus Christ always remains before us. In some strange way, time stands still when it comes to our relationship with God. Not too long ago, after a lengthy absence from a spiritual reconciliation, I was immediately accepted back without judgment and greeted with two of the most underrated words one seeks to hear: "Welcome back." For me, it proved that Christianity in its loving and forgiving nature, is always there waiting for us. Regardless of where you are, who you are, and what you do: now is the perfect time to open your heart, de-stress your soul, and reach out to the love and freedom that a relationship with Christ presents.
--Tim Stratford

I feel like I have a strong faith in God and that I am, for the most part, a good person. I pray and I try to think about my actions and attitudes. But having a relationship with Christ is not an active part of my life. I know from past experience that, when I have been called by God to do something, his request of me can feel incredibly difficult. But when I do it, an entire world opens up inside me. I don’t actively follow Christ right now, but this question resonated with me so I thought, okay, maybe I should try this. Ready or not, I’m going to step into it. It may not be easy, but I know that if I can do it, it will lead me someplace new and amazing.
--Marie

Are you ready to follow Christ? I think inherently, most of us will say yes. Of course I am ready to follow Christ!! But two things stop us from beginning that journey--first, I often think many of us are waiting for a sign that Christ is here and we are to take the next step. And secondly, we don't know how to stay on that path, without getting off at the next exit.

As I see it, there is no clear-cut route you need to take. Not all of us end up on the same road, as following Christ can take on a different meaning for each of us. Sometimes, we are looking for guidance in helping with a problem or difficult situation we are going through. Sometimes, we need to feel loved or comforted when we are alone. Sometimes, we want to be good disciples, following in the footsteps of our Lord. 

For me, it was a combination of all of those things that led me to get back on the road to follow Christ. I was someone who got off the wrong exit years ago, but I can assure you that getting back on that road is easy--you just need to turn around and start the journey, because Christ is waiting for all of us to take his lead. I remembered the feeling of fullness, completeness, warmth, and love that surround me when I am following in his footsteps. 
Being involved in ministry at St. Luke has been my re-entry to a journey I started long ago, and it was just like seeing an old friend who loves and knows you for who you are, always accepts and believes in you. 
--Christine Regan

I love the way this Sunday’s Gospel starts: “The Spirit drove Jesus into the desert....” I clearly see Jesus as a passenger, with the Holy Spirit behind the wheel heading into a world full of temptations and wild things but yet always protected. That’s today’s world too. I trust the Spirit will show me the next road to take, but first I need to strengthen my relationship with him. This year I feel as if I am returning from the desert, and I need to pray, talk to him, and ask for the courage to open myself more to his loving guidance. Lent is my special time to do this and be renewed. I say “yes” to his invitation and look forward to a new road trip with the Holy Spirit as my guide and friend. How about you?
--Nancy Mitchell

Are you interested in offering one of these responses in the coming weeks? We’d love to include you! Please e-mail Kathy O’Leary ([email protected]) for details on how to participate.

Take your next step: Find fifteen minutes when you can be uninterrupted. Grab a piece of paper, or a journal if you have one, or open up a new e-mail and address it to yourself. At the top of the page or e-mail, write: “Am I ready to follow Christ?” Write what comes from your heart. If you feel ready to take this step, take a few more minutes to talk to God about what you have written.

Lent begins one week from today, and if you are anything like me, you have probably at some point experienced a feeling of panic on Mardi Gras—“Oh no! Lent starts tomorrow, and I have no idea what I am going to do!” Maybe some of you have had that same feeling, like you had to come up with something really good to give up for Lent, or something really goodto do, and have felt that same sense of pressure mount as Ash Wednesday approaches. And if you are anything like me, this feeling of pressure has sometimes been rooted more in a sense of obligation than in a desire to grow in relationship with Christ. Perhaps this is why my Lenten practices, until fairly recently, have not usually resulted in real growth in my relationship with Christ. 

If this has been true for you as well, we invite you to consider Lent from a new perspective this year—not as a time when we have to do something to make ourselves suffer, because that’s what we learned in the religion of our childhood, but as an opportunity to grow in relationship with Christ, because that’s the only way we will find true joy and fulfillment. Here at New Roads, we are trying to make this relationship the center of everything we do, and to help people at all stages of the faith journey to take their next steps in developing this relationship, even and especially if the next step for you happens to be the first significant step you have taken to grow in relationship with Christ since your baptism. 

So we want to invite you to consider this Lent as an opportunity to grow in relationship with Christ. We will be doing this through our message series on “Why Choose Christ?” and we invite you to take that journey with us. We will explore together why one might choose to follow Christ and what it really means to be his disciple. Our message series this Lent will help us to find the points of contact between Christ’s life story and our own that will help us to identify with him, to recognize the ways in which he is already at work in our lives, and to become more intentional disciples.

Each week of Lent, our “Take Your Next Step” blog, appearing in both the Wednesday Flocknote e-mail and the Sunday bulletin column, will feature several members of our community offering a brief, personal response to the week’s reflection question. If you are interested in offering one of these responses, please e-mail Kathy O’Leary ([email protected]). The question for the first Sunday of Lent is: Are you ready to follow Christ?

So there is an urgency to Ash Wednesday, but it is not the urgency of an obligation to fulfill, but the urgency to pay attention, to make sure we don’t miss the opportunity that Lent offers us to reconsider our relationship with Christ. As you try to imagine what concrete form this might take for you, you might consider making a commitment to something that could help you to grow in that relationship. Maybe it’s ten minutes of daily prayer. Maybe it’s coming to Mass more regularly. Maybe it’s coming to Scripture reflection for the first time to hear Christ’s word to you. Maybe it’s coming to our Lenten simple suppers on Friday evenings, which will include an opportunity for conversation about the week’s question. Making any kind of commitment like this will surely require a tradeoff—we can’t just add things to our lives without adjusting something else. So as we begin our Lenten journey, we are invited to choose our Lenten practices based on an honest self-evaluation: What will help me to grow in relationship with Christ? 

~Rachel

Take your next step: Take some time to ask yourself: What step can I take this Lent to help me grow closer to Christ? What might I have to let go of in order to take this step?

When reading the Gospel of Mark, I come away from the experience with the impression that Jesus is constantly on the move, always meeting people who are looking for something from him. Even just the ten lines that are given to us as the reading for the fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time are enough to convey an image of Jesus on the go. Equally, those few verses reveal the compassionate, healing presence that Jesus brings to his encounters with us. Without being asked, Jesus, on hearing of Simon’s mother-in-law’s illness, reaches out, grasps her hand, helps her up, and heals her. He saw her need and took care of it. Similarly, come evening, the whole town arrives at the door, including the ill and possessed that they have brought with them. He heals them all, even though there were many in need. Critical to us in this passage is what Jesus does next.

Early in the morning, he leaves, goes to a deserted place, and prays. Did Jesus go and pray to discern what his Father was asking of him? Did he go to think about what his next step in his mission was to be? Did Jesus simply need to talk over the day with the one who sent him, to share his feelings about all those who came to him seeking an encounter or healing? Maybe all of these were part of his prayer. What is important to note is that it was after he had drawn aside in the solitude of a deserted place that Jesus emerged with an awareness of his purpose: to preach throughout all of Galilee. Jesus’s purpose was to preach the Good News. Jesus, the Son of God, needed to take time apart to become centered and to discover or rediscover what his mission was. If he needed to spend time alone in prayer and discernment, how much more are we dependent on solitude and prayerful conversation with God to find our center and to discern our direction, our purpose?

I imagine there is not one of us who cannot imagine how Jesus felt when he was told: “Everyone is looking for you.” Sometimes we just want to cry out: “Come back later, or tomorrow or next week.” It’s a very human reaction to the recurring demands made on our time, energy, and gifts. Jesus drew his strength from his personal, intimate relationship with the Father. The only truly fruitful and successful source of strength for us to draw from is our relationship with God. Uniting ourselves with the compassionate, healing God that Jesus revealed himself to be will give us the strength we need to pour ourselves out as we spread the Good News. Jesus needed to pull aside to a quiet place. How could we expect to deepen our relationship with God, to discern how Jesus wants us to share in his mission, without doing the same?

~Sr. Kathleen

Take your next step: Consider what in your life needs to be healed. Spend time in prayer asking God to provide that gift of healing for you so you might better share the Good News with others.