RUN !!

We are always running, hurrying everywhere. But when it comes to the things that really matter, where is our urgency?

I've ignored the urgency of our faith for much of my life. We cradle Catholics sometimes do that. We take our treasure for granted and put it off on a shelf somewhere for future use. As a young adult, though, I had to ask myself: What if everything that I've been taught is true? Shouldn't my life be different? Shouldn't I being taking all this seriously -- urgently? 

Sadly, I still need frequent reminders that we have an urgent faith. Like St. Paul, we're running a race, a marathon, a lifelong race. Sometimes my life race resembles how I physically run, which can draw either laughs or pity. In both spiritual and physical running, I lack stamina. And in my spiritual race I fall down a lot. Fortunately God is with me to give me strength, help me back up and set me on the right course.

The race we run can also be likened to a relay race. We have a baton to pass on.  Our recent popes have reminded us that faith is not just a set of beliefs. It's an ongoing relationship with God. If we don't get that right, nothing else matters. But it's not only our eternal lives on the line. Jesus commissions us to go and make disciples. For St. Columbkille parishioners in particular, that's our mission statement. We need to support the general evangelical work of the parish, but we also need to embrace our mission work personally, in our everyday lives. We don't need to preach, but we do need to live our faith, our relationship with God. The Holy Spirit will build a fire in us that naturally draws other souls with its warmth.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was to become Pope Benedict XVI, wrote about how we are to run to others with the good news of our faith. His writing is contained in a series of meditations called "Seek That Which Is Above." 

"The Gospel at the Easter Vigil tells us that, after their encounter with the angels, the women started running, both in fear and in joy, to pass on the message to the others. Christianity is not something boring or second-rate; the person who is confronted with this message must start running. It sets him in motion because it is important that it should spread farther before it is too late. The apostles themselves began this race through the world, as it were, in order to bring to the whole of the known earth, in their generation, the message of the victory of life, of the Lord's Resurrection. The disciples of Jesus slept that time on the Mount of Olives, but we slumber in the daylight of Easter Day and fail to see the central issue. In this hour we ought to open our hearts to the greatness of the message, so that we too may set off, bearing His light to others before it is too late, before death carries out its cruel harvest; fired by this day's joy, we ourselves ought to become evangelists, that is, heralds of the joy of Jesus Christ."

Racers, take your mark.

Inspired by this Year of Faith we will be posting columns like this from Susan Szalewski about exploring and/or deepening our faith. Watch for it on Thursdays and see the Year of Faith Blog here.