Contemporary theologian Rick Goralewicz recently wrote, concerning Palm Sunday:
“We stand in the conflict between expectation and reality as we join with the crowds welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem this Palm Sunday. We participate in the drama of the Passion and Resurrection of Christ with all of our own hopes and expectations. But unlike the crowd and Herod, we are offered a choice to allow God into our lives to transform those hopes and expectations according to God’s will, not our own.”
Reflected in the mirror each day is a person searching for their better self. Each day we awake with plans, each night we fall asleep with recognition that those plans weren’t entirely executed. Our choices that day led to winding pathways, snaking our attention from the straight paths of our intended walk. In short, we just didn’t quite ‘get there’. Alas, tomorrow it is, then.
The days bleed into one another becoming weeks. Weeks turn to months and months to seasons—before we recognize it, our faces have changed in that mirror, lines have been added and our minds have lost a step. It becomes harder to pursue our own plans and some of our dreams die in silent whispers carried away by time. Our choices brought us to this point; our plans suffered because of them.
But this choice mentioned above, this opportunity to allow God to transform us, is what makes this life worth living. The choice to say yes to God allows us to acknowledge that our failures in accomplishing daily tasks are not failures at all; they're simply alternate courses yet unvisited due to a holier destination. This yes smooths out the lines created from worry. It eases the stress of a wandering mind. By allowing God to seep into our thoughts and hearts, we’re allowing ourselves the grace that is unrelentingly seeking to carry new whispers of hope into our souls. Those whispers, once received, turn into shouts of praise and thanksgiving. Our previously laid plans become less important as we die unto ourselves and live into Christ. Then, we become that version of the better self sought in our previous years. All along, we simply needed to allow for God’s will to invade us, connecting to every fiber of our being; to transform us through perfect grace rather than attempting to imperfectly mold ourselves through our own power.
Without Christ we are powerless to transcend our human desires and be transformed into what we were and are meant to be: harbingers of grace. Our plans take a backseat to God’s intentions when we choose to listen. The less important and penultimate goals of our lives seem lesser when we return the embrace offered freely, eagerly awaiting our response that says, “Here I am Lord, send me.”
We must expect less of ourselves in terms of what we are capable of without Christ and lean into what that great yes—the answer to allowing God in—will accomplish. Our reality is only limited by what we choose to make of it. This week, and every other week that follows, start saying yes to God. Yes, I will love my neighbor. Yes, I will worship because I desire you. Yes, I will consult you prior to making plans. Yes, I will look upon my own face with grace and courage, knowing that you work mightily through me. Yes, I will faithfully stumble just as I will be set right by your grace. And yes, I see your marvelous works in action, and I see myself as one of them.
Yes, Lord. Yes.
Faithfully,
Fr. Sean+