“Imitating Christ does not mean living a life like Christ, but rather living your own life as authentically as Christ lived his.” ~Henri J.M. Nouwen
We’ve all seen it or heard it before. It could have been in a scripture passage, a spiritual book, a church hymn, or even in a preached homily at Mass. The message was this: each and every one of us should strive to imitate Jesus.
A sloth is a strange looking animal, isn’t it? Whenever I look at a sloth, I say to myself, “I am sure glad that I am not a sloth!”
Who am I to say that a sloth isn’t thinking the same thing about me? A sloth might be glad that it’s not a human being. I guess what you think of others depends on who or what you are. But since I am a human and not a sloth, I think sloths are kind of weird looking.
A sloth has almost no tail and no ears, a short snout, and only has two or three toes, depending on the species. And sloths are slow moving animals that live in trees. But by far the strangest thing about the sloth is that it is an upside-down animal. If you want to look at a sloth straight in the eye, you have to turn your head upside down. Sloths live upside down. They eat upside down, and they spend their whole lives living upside down in trees.
I don’t know about you, but I would certainly not want to live that way. I would never want to walk upside down, eat upside down or even sleep upside down. It just sounds uncomfortable.
Yet, strangely enough, this is what many people do. They live upside down. Not really, of course. They don’t walk on their hands or eat hanging upside down from the kitchen ceiling. But they live upside down in another way. They don’t live the way that Jesus wants them to live.
Jesus says that we must seek God first. He says that we must make God number one in our life and ourselves number two. He says that when we do that, we’re living right side up. But many of us do the opposite. We make ourselves number one and God number two. That’s turning Jesus’ words on their head. That’s living like a sloth.
How can we make sure that we are living right side up? The best way is to live every day, with Christ’s help, in the way he has shown us: by loving our neighbor, helping one another, and spreading the Gospel by the way we live our lives. If we can do that on a day to day basis, the future will take care of itself and there will be no need to worry.
Sometimes, things don’t always go according to plan. Sometimes, we become frustrated, disappointed, and upset. Sometimes, we think we’re doing a bang-up job when someone comes along and gives us a slap on the side of the head with a major dose of reality. This is what St. Paul encountered in Macedonia in today’s scripture reading (Acts 18:1-8). Read More
There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth…not going all the way, and not starting. ~Buddha
It’s funny how the voice of the Lord is heard in different ways by different people. But what’s most important is that we are able to actually “hear” that voice, and act on it.
Over the past several months, I have been moving toward following that voice. So far, I have avoided the mistake of not starting. That is why that you are viewing this blog on my new website. I took that leap of faith in following my calling to go out and become “available” to the world. It was a calling to go out and evangelize by using my God-given gifts to serve the Lord by serving others. It is an opportunity to share my stories, songs, and teachings with my fellow Catholic-Christians. Read More
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