Good, Good Father

Just a quick update, because I truly realize that I haven't posted in a really long time.

It's been a very busy past few months, being neck-deep into my third year of university education and all the trials and tribulations that come with it. I'm not going to lie and say it was easy; it was certainly a very difficult four months for me in all aspects: physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. I would not have traded any of it for anything, but it was a hectic and busy time filled with and not exclusive to school, work, youth ministry, CCO, Spirit Day, and World Youth Day 2016 prep. Throughout this time I barely had time to breathe, to think, and to pray. However, this is the kind of environment that the Thomasian brain thrives in - this is the environment he loves. Although sometimes I wish I could just learn to take a break!

Although riddled with dryness and lukewarmness all-around, there have been many incredible blessings throughout the past semester: perhaps one of the biggest ones being the priestly ordination Mass for two priests in our Archdiocese - it was a truly blessed and wonderful evening. I've realized that God loves to spoil us and impress us, and the beautiful sensory experience that was the ordination Mass is something that can hardly be put into words. Great spiritual conversations with some of the seminarians that I call as close as brothers ended off the night.

Little things. It's easy for God to do the big things, to put on a spectacle, isn't it. After all, He's God! But I've come to the realization that He also loves to work through the tiny moments: an interaction with a customer, a smile with a stranger on the street, getting the perfect nap on the morning commute, coffee with a friend. That's God for you - He is so infinite that He can never be fully comprehended by our feeble, human brains. Yet, there's the beauty in the mystery - we don't have to fully comprehend Him for us to realize that our hearts are moulded for Him, our souls yearn and thirst for Him; that He and only He, who is the Beginning and the End; who is, who was, and who is to come; can satisfy us and bestow on us the greatest of joys, peace, and love.

One of such little things that God worked in my life this past week was at work - probably one of the most secular places in my life. Unmistakably, "Good, Good Father" - a beautiful song by Chris Tomlin, played over the speakers at my work. It was a strange moment, a colliding of two worlds, a beautiful and salient reminder that God is here - no matter how hidden He may seem or how absent He may seem. And right then and there, I went on with my daily activities with that silent prayer: thank You Lord. Thank You. It was with that incredible peace that I can just hear Him say, "it's going to be alright. Trust."

Maybe I'm just incredibly giddy at having my own, personal praise+worship session right at work; or maybe there's an incredible prayer hearing Chris Tomlin sing,

"I've seen many searching for answers far and wide

But I know we're all searching 

for answers only You provide."

In this season of Advent, my prayer for you and my prayer for myself is that we may all continue to grow in our faith and trust in our Lord. He is God; He is timeless. He knows what He's doing. The God of the Universe, the creator of the mighty mountains and the delicate roses, the crashing storms and the gentle breeze wants to know us and care for us. I think it's about time we let Him be our good, good Father.

Everything

Every year, the Archdiocese's Youth and Young Adult Ministry Office puts on a faith rally, pre-Confirmation event for the grade sevens in our Archdiocese - and every year, the Everything Skit is performed for the audience. It's an incredibly touching skit that depicts a girl through her struggle with sin and her acceptance of Jesus - her choice of Him, and in turn the awesome sacrifice that Jesus went through, freely, for all of us on the Cross in hopes that one day, with it now being possible, we will choose to reunite with Him.

The skit has always resonated with me very deeply in connection with my own sinfulness. I reject God, and have rejected Him, too many times in my life to count. The skit makes very real the struggle that I face and have faced, and for that I often find myself in tears because it is so exhausting and most of the time there is no hope in sight.

But the skit always helps me realize something else as well: it's the extreme lengths that God will go to bring me back. One of my favourite parts of the skit is when the vices struggle to grab the girl as Jesus protects her - with His cross - from all the sin that we struggle from. That chains us, that keeps us under. And that strikes me with an incredible amount of love and hope. Because God does that for me. He does it for you. It brings me to tears realizing that the fight is not a fight I have to do alone, but a fight that the God of the universe is fighting with me.

Recently, I have gotten the chance to be in the skit as a vice. And as much as I had learned from the skit as a spectator, I am beginning to see all the ways that I can learn from just being in the skit myself. It is a lot harder, and a lot more exhausting, and a lot more physically draining, than it appears on stage or on video. That reminds me of my own personal fight with sin. It is not going to be an easy fight, and often I will indeed be left bruised, and hurt, and fallen, and there are times when we must take the initiative and say, "Lord, I love You more than I love my sin, and today I am going to choose to run to you." The fight is long and drawn out, and often it feels like it will never end and we will always be caught in this constant state of motion: fighting, falling, getting back up.

But suffering passes, and if I am sure of anything, I am sure of that fact. Because God fights for me. And He does so every day of my life. And I can have full confidence that no matter how much I run from him, He will never give up on me, and He will always be waiting for me to return home.

Even if everyone says 'no'

Day 63 of IMPACT | July 5, 2015

Living in community with six other brothers in Christ is an incredible experience: among all of these amazing reasons, one is getting so much inspiration and motivation from watching and experiencing their lives and hearing their stories. Seeing all my brothers living such authentic and joyful Catholic lives is so beautiful to me and so inspiring to me. It gives me role models to follow, brothers to walk with on the journey, and fuels in me a great hope for the future of the Church.

It is from one of these brothers I live with that the following reflection comes from: in the face of desolation and spiritual attack, it is wonderful to have companions that can speak God's word to me and life me up in desolation.

Last Friday, we participated our second Nightfever adoration event - a time when the doors of the Church are opened and we invite and encourage people passing by to come in and offer a candle and prayer for someone they love or someone that is in their heart. It is a very beautiful, non-intimidating way to expose people to the beauty of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and allow Jesus to continue to work in their lives through the Source and Summit of our faith - the Eucharist.

Being on street team is an incredibly humbling experience for me - especially since many people who we talk to on the street don't agree to come in and most walk by without even making eye contact. It's a sad exposure to where we are in our current society, where human interaction is often replaced by a preference to online and virtual interactions - even when there are real people around us.

However, my brothers have helped me to see how incredible an experience this is. A lot of the times, we honestly don't see the fruits of our labour - it is not something God allows all the time (and thank God for that - it keeps me humble). It is so easy during those times, to lose track of what we're doing and be entirely focused on seeing results, on seeing people walk into the Church, to see our words affect others.

Ultimately, it's the Holy Spirit that moves in us. And even if that person says no, we need to still believe that the Holy Spirit is still planting seeds and moving within them. I think especially me, I am so focused on that desire that I could 'convert' someone or help someone come back to the Church, and see them experience the same joy I've experienced. But honestly, that is not a gift for me to have, at least most of the time. It's an incredible blessing from God if we do see that - but most of the time, it's not for us to experience.

But just because we don't see results doesn't mean we stop fighting, that we stop sharing, that we stop having that heart for the lost. Sometimes we (I) need to be reminded that results don't matter. Because the results are up to God. I will fight the good fight. And let the Spirit do the rest.

"All that matters is that Jesus be proclaimed, that is what brings me joy." - Philippians 1:18

Veni Sancte Spiritus.

God is indeed working

Day 48 of IMPACT | June 20, 2015

At the beginning of every formation session on Saturday mornings with IMPACT, the floor is open and we are invited to share 'glory stories' with the rest of the team. This is a way of acknowledging everything that God is doing in our lives, but also as a way to celebrate the wonderful things that are happening on mission and the blessings that we, as a team, are experiencing on a day to day basis. It is truly a beautiful and humbling experience to be able to hear the experiences of the other missionaries and at times, to share my own in celebration of what God has done for me.

It has been continually spiritually dry for me over the past few days (maybe even week), but it was truly so uplifting to see all the ways that God was working in the lives of the missionaries around me. Many of the stories left me in a state of awe and wonder at what the Lord can do and just how good He is to us.

Listening to glory stories are so wonderful for me and my own life. Sometimes, when I feel like God isn't working in my life, He truly is - just that He didn't choose to be as visible as He was in some other situations. These stories, however, are so inspiring to me and helps affirm for me the fact that God is indeed working, even though very often we don't notice it or see it.

These moments of consolation are so valuable and treasured, and I am so thankful that I am able to get them from such a good Lord. My hope as I continue to learn and grow is that I will be able to use these moments of consolation as boosts and as motivation during times when I feel desolate, alone, distant or unmotivated.

God is working during IMPACT, and He is doing incredible things (as He is God!) I am so proud to be able to simply be a part of this and let God do incredible things through me.

When the Spirit has other plans

Day 44 of IMPACT | June 16, 2015

Leading Discovery in a parish is a completely different experience than leading Discovery on campus. For one, it is definitely a large humbling experience to lead Discovery to older parishioners. It is also an inspiring experience, to be able to demonstrate how much God is working in the young Church (and for that I am truly thankful).

Everyone who knows me knows that I am a huge planner and always have a certain idea of how a certain lesson should run (especially Lesson 4, which we did today, and Lesson 5, the huge-ultimate-crazy-Jesus-is-amazing-be-the-centre-of-my-life lesson, which we're doing next week). Although that kind of mentality and planning works very well on campus, especially since on campus there tends to be more participants that are quieter and more reserved, it doesn't quite work as well in parishes (well, at least in my parish). On campus, sometimes discussion needs to be expanded in a certain way so that it fits within the hour time frame: however, in my parish, the opposite is true - discussion has to be cut short in order to fit the time frame (especially since many parishioners are running to other places or heading to bed early after).

Going in with expectations with Lesson 4 is something I naturally did tonight - after all, Lesson 4 of Discovery talks about Jesus being our Saviour and it's an incredibly important lesson to build up to Lesson 5 next week. Obviously, like every week, discussion was not going the way I wanted to go: there were tangents, people who didn't understand the questions, people who jumped ahead of where the discussion was going, and some who felt like they couldn't talk. It was every small group leader's nightmare!

However, it is in our trials that God creates good. While I was frantically trying to steer conversation back towards the topic (especially the Bridge, c'mon!), legitimately good conversations were taking place and the Holy Spirit was truly working. Obviously, God had other plans for Lesson 4 tonight. After the lesson, some of the parishioners walked up to me afterwards to remark about what a great lesson it was and how much they enjoyed the conversation: the same lesson that I saw as not going as great as I hoped.

The words of one of the CCO staff, when he was talking to me about mission back in February, always ring through for me: I need to plan, yes, but I need to plan to an extent that there is still room for the Spirit to move and work. I think I'm guilty of doing this so often - planning so much that I know what I'm doing, but I don't know what the Spirit's doing, or if the Spirit has a chance to do anything at all.

If He works anything like today all the time, He even turns the bad, the uncomfortable, the sad experiences and makes something good out of it. Ultimately, even if I feel like my words are not reaching people, they probably aren't - it's the Spirit that moves and changes hearts, after all.

Are we giving up fighting the good fight...?

Day 40 of IMPACT | June 12, 2015

Today I was able to spend some time with my team and one of the parishioners at our parish for lunch and some wonderful discussion. As I haven't blogged in a long time, I wanted to take some time and write some thoughts that I was thinking during our discussion.

One of my favourite quotes is from Pope Benedict XVI when he said that "the world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort, you were made for greatness." Isn't that such a powerful and moving passage? Indeed, much of this world offers comfort. Avoid sensitive topics, stay at home, keep to yourself, stay with familiar surroundings, don't ask questions. There is such a large complacency in the world, and I am guilty of this as well, much apathy. No one cares about anything! Everyone is perfectly content with living in their own little bubble, and constantly striving to do things that will get themselves praise, reward, affirmation, and a feeling self-fulfillment. It's a world driven by me, myself, and I, and a world where God and others seem like distant afterthoughts. "Yeah, I'll help them out if I get something back. I'll go to Mass if I have time. I'll be nice to them if they're nice to me." Where's the initiative, the selflessness, the stepping outside of oneself?

We are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14)!!! I am still just starting to fathom what that could possibly mean. God created us to love, to give of ourself to others, to mimic his own sacrificial love. We are created in His image, and with a plan! God doesn't make mistakes. He doesn't say "just kidding" and then take back what he just said or did previously (I often do that, for those who don't know). God doesn't make mistakes. He has wonderful plans for all of us, plans that show that He truly has our best interests in mind (Jeremiah 29:11). God doesn't set us up for failure and He certainly isn't malicious to put us in a bad situation that His grace cannot provide a way out of. That's not our God. Our God is love. Our God IS love. Deus caritas EST.

Surely we are meant for more than this? Surely we are meant for more than 10 likes on Instagram, or a cover photo that nobody saw, or a status that nobody commented on? Surely we are meant for more than an ad on TV, on billboards, that convince us that we should be someone else? Surely we are meant for more than just staring at a mirror wishing we were just that much thinner, that much darker, that much taller, that much more beautiful, that much more handsome, that much more muscular?

Truly, are we giving up? Are we getting tired, are we getting complacent? Are we stopping our fight, discouraged at the world for what it's become? Are we giving up sharing Jesus because there's no one that we think would appreciate us for sharing our faith? Our cure for spiritual cancer? Our source of joy and peace and love and life?

We are constantly fighting a spiritual battle in this world. We are fighting a battle that a certain evil one wants us to lose. We cannot afford to stop fighting. We cannot cease our prayer. We must not lose sight of God, we must continue to desire Him and choose Him every single day of our lives. It's so much easier to do the alternative, yes. (Like, MUCH easier.) But what is life without something to fight for? What is life without someone to sacrifice for? What is life without someone to live for?

Are we living at all? Maybe it's time we stop being comfortable and start being great. Maybe it's time we finally come to life with the love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

God will provide

Day 24 of IMPACT | May 27, 2015

The past couple days have been difficult for me, in a large part because of the fact of the increasing lack of sleep that I've been experiencing, and the lapses of attention and motivation resulting from that.

I never imagined that I would be saying this, but working a part-time job as well as going on mission was a lot demanding than I could have ever imagined it to be. As a large multi-tasker, insane planner and bender of time (not really), I have done many different things all at once in the past, and have gotten by really well. However, this experience right now, although familiar, is strangely different - because of the timing of my shifts and mission activities, my sleep schedule has no choice but be compromised: and a sleep-deprived Thomas is one that, I have to admit, is unfortunately not pleasant to be around (that is something I will have to work on!)

The time so far has been incredible on mission and I can already feel myself challenged and growing in many ways that I do not see myself growing in if I were not to go on mission. One part of this, especially, is living in community. Living with six other young men (and thirteen, if you count the seven downstairs - basically all the men on IMPACT) is a challenge but an experience that I would not trade for the world (yet).

However, the main point of the reflection I wanted to share today was how much God desires to communicate with us, help us, and show us His love and affection for us. In light of the struggles I have been facing in the past couple days, I have desperately desired someone I could comfortably talk to about it. While I could discuss with some of the members of my house (and I am trying!), it is often good to talk about someone looking in from a different perspective - and lo and behold, after saying this prayer during work this morning, two of my fellow IMPACTers visited me at work ten minutes before I was off. After spending the afternoon with them and sharing with them my thoughts, I felt an immense burden lifted off my shoulders and sharing allowed me to grow and put into words what I was feeling. It was incredibly comforting to be able to walk with my fellow IMPACTers on this journey and know that there will be people to walk with me and support me, and keep in me accountable during mission and also throughout the rest of my life.

After a prayer of thanksgiving and some time spend with my house, I realized that the struggles I'm facing are meant to help me grow - and most important, they are there so that I can continue to grow in trust of the Lord that He will provide for me and give me His support.

Ultimately, we're all walking on a journey to God. And through struggle and trials, I guess, with the help of my brothers and sisters, I make a few more steps towards that ultimate goal.

Beauty of the call

Day 20 of IMPACT | May 23, 2015

I'm going to start by admitting that this post was written a little bit after the fact, but I dated it on the day of the ordination so I can place it better in context for my personal reflection of my mission.

Today I was given an incredible opportunity to attend a priestly ordination in the Archdiocese of Vancouver. The deacon was a friend of mine and I was absolutely thrilled to be attending for the first time, the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

The whole Mass left me speechless and in awe of the beauty of God and the beauty of the Sacrament. As outward signs of inward grace, seeing this Sacrament in particular take place filled me with a deep sense of joy and simply awe. The community of priests, in particular, when they came up and one by one laid their hands on the new priest and embraced him, gave me such an excitement and beautiful feeling inside. The fact that a new priest is supported by so many other priests, like a brotherhood, is so wonderful to me. There was so much grace that was poured out during that day and it was absolutely beautiful to me.

The ordination was a blessing for me because it allowed me to see the beginning of the fulfillment of that vocation for that new priest. It showed me the beauty of the call that God gives each and every one of us - our vocation. After greeting the new priest after his ordination, he radiated pure joy and importantly, peace. It was so wonderful to see him discovering God's vocation for him and now making the decision to enter into that vocation.

I'm continuing to learn that God always desires the best for us and his call for us is the call that will give us the most fulfillment, but also importantly, the best way for us to serve others and bring others to Heaven with us. The two sides of our faith - holiness and mission - is ultimately best fulfilled through our vocation. Our God who loves us so much has personally designed a plan for each of us to live - and I cannot wait to discover what God has in plan for me.

"Are you ready to worship?"

Day 12 of IMPACT | Friday, May 15, 2015

Yesterday the IMPACT team hosted our first Cornerstone event this summer. Throughout the night, we had speakers who gave talks and testimonies, a little bit of praise + worship (which was an incredible blessing for me to be a part of), as well as lots of time for fellowship and getting to know the other Catholics in the area who came to Cornerstone and get a chance to hear their stories and share mine.

I would have to say though, the part of the event that stood out to me and really hit home yesterday night (although I learned a LOT through the event) wasn't even part of the event - it was a moment of realization that occurred right before the event even started.

Backtrack to a few days ago when I was asked to do percussion in the worship team during the Cornerstones this summer. I was absolutely humbled about being asked, but also equally scared and anxious. All the other people in the worship team had many years of experience in their musical instruments, and as someone who is relatively new to leading worship with very little experience under my belt, this was an exciting but also daunting experience for me. In addition, starting out in percussion, the person that actually carries the beat, I placed an enormous amount of pressure on myself and I found myself incredibly nervous during practice and all the way to the event. (Not to mention, I didn't have any musical training so none of the fancy terms mean anything to me.)

We sang just one song - Matt Maher's "All the People Said Amen", which I absolutely love. After practicing the songs a little while, I quickly became incredibly anxious about getting the song right and the possible embarrassment that would happen if I missed a beat, sped up, or messed up. A certain dread filled me and while still attempting to maintain my calm exterior before the event started, inside I couldn't keep it together.

This went on for the duration of the rest of practice until the very end, when everyone stopped practice to welcome the attendees of Cornerstone. It was then when one of my fellow IMPACT missionaries said quite excitedly, "are you ready to worship?"

BAM. It hit me then. We aren't performing. There is no way we're performing. We're praying. We're worshiping. We're playing music to God. For God. Because of God. I've realized I've approached it all wrong - I can't be perfect all the time and mistakes happen, and I simply couldn't put that much pressure on myself: nor should I.

I did the whole song with the rest of the worship team and I approached it simply as a prayer. And quite simply put, it was one of the most amazing and exhilarating feelings I have ever had. I cannot believe the amount of fun I had and the adrenaline I felt on the percussion. I'm not sure how it went in the perspective of everyone else, but I thought it was a blast and most definitely a prayerful experience.

I'm still nervous heading into future Cornerstones and future praise and worship sessions, but I needed that reminder yesterday that everything we do, especially P&W, is for the glory of God.

Seeing every day as a blessing

Day 9 of IMPACT | May 12, 2015

This is a post I've been meaning to write for the past couple days - but unfortunately (or fortunately!!) our first day at our parishes this Sunday and our first free night yesterday night made me end up going non-stop all weekend (and slacking off on sleep, but that's another story).

It has been such a blessed weekend. It was incredible to see the large amount of work the Lord and our parish pastor went to ensure our successes and an easy transition for the IMPACT team to arrive there. All I can say that I was incredibly shocked, humbled, and moved by the joy and welcome of the parishioners and my truly inspiring and wonderful team.

I met a woman after one of the Sunday Masses at my parish who I got to sit down and chat with for a while and who donated a large box of donations - like a "survivor kit" - to me and the rest of my team at the parish. I got a chance to share a little bit of my story and what got me to come to IMPACT, and she shared with me hers - a moving, truly inspiring story of her and her daughter. It truly shocked me and humbled me with her openness towards me and the rest of the IMPACT team, and ultimately her beautiful joyful attitude despite being in the face of many, many challenges and trials that faced both her and her daughter. When I told her that her joy inspires me, she told me, "every day is a gift from God and a blessing." This is a mentality that I always try to adopt in my life, but it is no surprise that it is very difficult. However, seeing her joy greatly inspires me and greatly motivates me and gives me hope.

The world had a negativity bias on it - and that's not fair. Not to us, and most certainly not to God. The truth of the matter is, and I am coming to realize, we are blessed beyond our wildest imaginations - and most definitely more than challenges are sent to us. The God of the universe loves us personally and always wants the best for us. It is so easy, and I am to exception, to focus on just the things that go wrong in life rather than all the many more times that things go right or that things fall into place. It's such a downer!

Even though that lovely woman was carrying the weight of her own cross, she still found it in her heart to be joyful, cheerful and giving to others. I am most humbled by the donations she offered to my parish team out of the little that she had - she was thinking of us before we even thought of her: it was absolutely humbling and left me speechless. We are all called to be generous - and trust that God will provide for us in turn. God uses all of us to provide for each other: and that is something that's incredibly beautiful. I think ultimately, every day is an incredible gift from our good Lord and it's up to use to use it wisely - for good, and tackle the negativity bias, or for not-so-good, and decide to conform to the negativity bias.

I'm coming to realize that going on mission this summer in Vancouver is not only about God changing lives through me. I think more importantly, God is using others to change mine.

He can change your life forever.

Day 5 of IMPACT | May 8, 2015

This short reflection occurred to me during one of our PW prayers this morning after a wonderful few days in retreat and preparing for our work in our parishes next week. An encounter - a true, personal experience - with God, in reality, changes you in a way that's difficult to describe. It is from this desire that part of the motivation of my missionary work arises: my desire for others to experience this life-changing experience God provides.

Truth is, I'm realizing that we all have a void in our hearts that we need to fill. And the world will try and fill us with all these things that seem great but in reality leave us more hungry and more thirsty. However, I realize that a hole that is designed for God to fill, can't be filled by anything but God himself. We search so much and we are so desperate to fill it. We want so much to be happy, to be at peace with ourselves, to be joyful in our daily endeavours.

I believe that a true encounter with Christ changes the direction of your life.

Climbing without the safety net.

Day 3 of IMPACT | May 6, 2015

The past few weeks have been large blessings for me as I attended and helped out at the annual Archdiocesan Youth Day as well as began my mission with Catholic Christian Outreach. A common theme running throughout this time was just how much the Lord was calling me to grow in faith in Him and trust that He indeed has a plan (a GREAT plan) for me that will fill my future with hope and joy (cf. Jeremiah 29:11).

The past couple months were indeed difficult months for me as I had to make many difficult decisions about matters I didn't know too much about. The biggest of these decisions was going on mission with CCO. There was so much I didn't (and still don't) know, and the fact that I was unable to make a plan or envision the next few months was completely terrifying. As a person who likes a certain degree of routine and a certain degree of planned activities, this was completely out of my comfort zone and it was a difficult decision to make simply because I couldn't see what was happening. That's where the Lord was calling me to trust. I relied so much on the safety net that I set up for myself that I was completely unable to let the Lord work in my life.

In fact, even with just the past three days of community living, orientation, and my first experiences of mission, it is terrifying to me what could've happened if I said 'no' back in February and decided to take summer school instead to get ahead of my degree. I would not have met 38 other incredible missionaries from across Canada, who are all passionate and on fire for their faith and their relationship with Jesus, I would not have heard their stories, and I would not have gotten a chance to really grow in both my calling to holiness and mission. And yes, this is just three days into mission!

The past couple days have been such blessings for me. Without a doubt, this is something I know for sure now that God was calling me to do. I know there will be sufferings in the future, but the very fact is, the past couple days just felt so right for me, now it is hard to envision doing anything else with my summer this year because going on IMPACT, so far, now just seems like the no-brainer.

Looking back on this path of preparation to IMPACT, I am realizing now just how much the Lord sustained me and provided for me: in my fundraising, in my prayer, in my decisions, in my life in general. I had so much fear entering that the Lord has completely resolved or taken away from me now. It is hard to imagine doing this without the Lord's help or His providence. Looking back now, it is simply so easy to see so many of the events that the Lord had a hand in and played a role in. And for that I am grateful: both for Him and all the other wonderful people he sent in my path to support and encourage me during the preparation phase and now.

There is still so much for me to learn and I haven't even entered my parish with my team yet (we haven't found those out yet either, haha). However, I am so incredibly excited for what the next few months hold. The sense of community I am feeling right now with my 13 other brothers just feels right. I know this is where I am meant to be this summer and I feel so much peace and joy in realizing that. There are going to be many experiences I haven't tried and many roles I may be asked to play that I haven't played before - and I am excited for all of these even though a majority of them scare me. But I am learning to trust that the Lord will provide for me.

One of the things to the 'best summer evah' that our leaders suggested was to do something that scares you this summer. I fully intend to take that challenge: and it is with that boldness that I hope to approach this mission.

Pray for me and I for you!

Looking forward

Yesterday I finished my last exam of the year and thus, my second year of university came to an end. It's simply incredible how fast the time flies and how in a blink of an eye, I am halfway through my undergraduate degree.

Looking back, this year was a very important year of my life filled with many challenges, lessons learned, discoveries, friendships, reparation, and discernment. I've discovered the whole journey is not as straightforward as I initially imagined and that a lot more discernment, living, and praying goes into all the deciding.

This year I served on the student executive of Catholic Christian Outreach, an organization which significantly changed the course of my faith life over the past two years. Through CCO I discovered my desire for a personal relationship with Jesus and that motivated me to fervently search for ways to fulfill that desire - through the sacraments, through the Eucharist, through spiritual direction, through personal prayer. In turn, all of this allowed me to learn a lot more about myself and address and strengthen my weaknesses.

Perhaps the single most difficult decision this year was deciding to go on mission this summer. A lot of fear and a lot of uncertainty was present and I described a lot of that in my previous reflection in February. It was terrifying for me that I didn't know what was in store (and still don't know a lot of it... to be honest) and as someone who plans a lot and someone who sticks by a set a course of action, this was something that frightened me quite a lot. The mission so far, even though I haven't started yet, has been a big lesson on trust in the Lord that He will indeed provide. So far, He has certainly been doing wonderful things for me in preparation for mission that I never knew were possible. Now a week away from mission, I am filled with a certain sense of excitement but also peace as I embark for the summer.

My future is certainly unknown and I don't know what's in store for me in the next years, or even the next few months on mission: but I am confident that the Lord knows what He is doing, even though I won't necessarily always know. I'm slowly learning to let go and gain peace from that.

Onwards.

Fearless

It's so easy to enter into an endeavour when we feel we have control over it. If we can feel like everything is planned out, everything is ready, and all obstacles are adjusted for and accounted for, it is actually quite easy to hop right into it. For me, everything has to be this way, it allows me to be comfortable when everything is planned, and everything is organized, and everything is accounted for. I don't like surprises, and if I have do something where there is even a hint of a possibility that I won't be able to expect the outcome or what will happen, I get uncomfortable and tend to back out. For me, being comfortable is something that is so important to me that I pretty much would never do anything uncomfortable.

But that's exactly what the Lord is calling me to do.

The past couple weeks have been a large for me as I discerned possible pathways for the summer. One particular path frightened me greatly, but it seemingly was the path the Lord wanted me to go (of course.)

I think the Lord throws obstacles and choices in my path as a way for me to grow in specific virtues. In particular, in this episode of my life, that virtue happens to be trust. The reason I don't do many things is fear. It's the ultimate fear that I'll be caught off guard, that I'll be called to do something I'm not comfortable with, or to do something that I ultimately would dislike doing. It's the fear of failure, it's the fear of being placed outside of my comfort zone.

But the Lord never intended for us to be comfortable. Pope Benedict XVI said something that still resonates with me always: "The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort, you were made for greatness." Imagine that. It is so easy for me to do the less daunting thing, to do the thing that I will know the result to, that I know what will happen. No surprises. But what would the accomplishment in that be, where would the joy be? How would the world change if we all stayed in our own comfort zones and never dared to enter into a place that would make us even mildly uncomfortable?

To be Christian, to be Catholic: the last thing we want to do is be comfortable. In our comfort zones, we will never reach anyone that the Lord wants to reach. We would never be able to do His work in this world. If we all did that, I don't even think I would have my faith to this day. The Church needs fearless leaders.

I think for me, being fearless means so much more than just not being afraid of anything. Being fearless means letting go of my own reservations, doing the work that I am called to, and letting (more, trusting that) God take control after that. It's action and mentality based on the unwavering trust and love in the Lord that He will indeed provide for us.

It's so hard for me to let go of that control. I'm continually learning to let God take the steering wheel and drive me where he wants me to go. I go into it, and I let God do the rest. I've seen the Holy Spirit move in hearts and I've seen Him do incredible things through normal, ordinary people. I know God can do amazing things and I know he's working and active in my life. Time for me to begin trusting that the God of the Universe knows what He's doing.

Orate pro me, et pro vobis orabo.