All the many event occurring in Rome and the Universal Church these past weeks and the weeks to come provide for us a great opportunity to pray for the General Assembly, the Cardinals, the Conclave, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, and the Church that her members may be unified, cleave authentically to the Magisterium, and be unwavering in their faith.
Let's face it, it's that time of year again - look around and you will surely find people who have that inner feeling of restlessness that they long for something more. Some people would call it winter blues, people ready for Springtime - I call it Lent. Don't get me wrong - I am not saying that Lent is depressing in the least; in fact, Lent/Easter is my favorite time of year. For me, personally, the joy of my Easter is based on the fruit of my Lent. During the desert of Lent we are offered the opportunity to look deeply into ourselves and see what is missing, what we need, how we should grow, and to make sure we are listening to God's voice and not our own. How do we do this? Through our prayer, fasting, abstinence, and almsgiving. This Lent we have the added spiritual bonus to embrace fasting and prayer for the above mentioned during this time of Sede Vacante as we joyfully await the election of a new Holy Father.
As humanity, we naturally want to do something good for the world, we want to make a difference, we want to accomplish something extraordinary in our lives. Yet often during this time of year that longing for something deeper is followed by a profound sense of the stark reality that we are ordinary, plain people with nothing really extraordinary in our lives.
We look to the lives of the saints, the popes, our heroes, or for many young people and growing numbers of older folks, celebrities in the secular media to determine our ordinariness. Why do we spend so much time thinking that the day to day of our lives is so hum drum, plain, and ordinary, when in fact as the Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us, "Scripture and Tradition never cease to teach and celebrate this fundamental truth: The world was made for the glory of God. St. Bonaventure explains that God created all things not to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it, for God has no other reason for creating than his love and goodness: Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened his hand." The First Vatican Council explains: This one, true God, of his own goodness and almighty power, not for increasing his own beatitude, nor for attaining his perfection, but in order to manifest this perfection through the benefits which he bestows on creatures, with absolute freedom of counsel "and from the beginning of time, made out nothing both orders of creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal..."" (CCC 293).
God created each and every one of us to serve Him in a particularly unique way. Because our individual call is unique, it is extraordinary. The parallel of it all is, that because what we are called to is so extraordinary, our yes to God's extraordinary will in our lives then becomes our ordinary calling. Ordinary not in content, but because it is what we are called to do every day.
The only way we can become the best version of ourselves is to do God's will. now don't get me wrong in the next few sentences here... I want to make myself clear that the lives of the saints due to their merit and holiness are wonderful role models for us to look to as we strive to grow in holiness and in our relationship with the Lord. Take St. Francis, St. Therese the Little Flower, St. Kateri, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Blessed John Paul II, or even your pastor or a religious sister you know - their lives seem extraordinary to us but to them their own life is ordinary. The life they live or lived is by no other explanation in the eyes of modern man extraordinary, and because these people live the life they are called to by God, their life is ordinary in the extraordinary.
God's call to each of us individually is extraordinary because it is uniquely our own. Humility reminds us that if we live the life we have been called to live, thinking of it as anything other than ordinary is, in fact, pride. So yes, we are all ordinary people living extraordinary lives in the ordinary way God has called us.
We are called in a special way during this Lent to embrace this kind of humility in our lives, delve into the Sacramental life, and to pray for the Church and the Christian faithful as we wait in joyful hope for the Conclave (which begins on March 12th) and for our new Pontiff.
P.S. Check out our post from Wednesday all about the exciting times in our Church today!
Written by Nicolette
