Seeing and Staying

January 4, 2019

Friday, Week after Christmas Octave

1 John 3: 7-10; John 1: 35-42

Seeing and Staying are two progressive phases after getting in touch with the Lord. The Lord invites each of us for an encounter everyday. To accept the invitation and get in touch with the Lord is already an act of faith - for that the Lord will bless you for sure!  But the invitation does not end there, it  extends much further - to see and to stay! 

First of all, to see what a life with the Lord means, to know and understand it, is the next phase. Let us put it this way: the initial step is to get interested in the Lord, as we are with regard to various things in life. It is like looking at a trailer, a teaser, a single of an album released. Can you stop with that, if your are truly an enthusiast. Will you not try to get to know it more, enjoy it more and experience it fully. Stopping with liturgical functions and pious practices would be stopping with the trailer or the teaser! You need to go deeper, get to know the Lord fuller, see what it means to experience the Lord in the depth.

While some of us do that willingly, going deeper into the Lord's invitation and finding its meaning in daily life, the invitation does not stop there. It goes further - to stay! This is where, the experience turns into life! It becomes part of you, it becomes you! To stay with the Lord is to be transformed in the Lord. As Paul would put it: to put on the mind of Christ (Phil 2:5); to become imitators of the Lord (1 Cor 11:1). We are called to walk in the Light (1 Jn 1:6)... we are called to Stay with the Lord! 

Our life with God is not just a race, where we touch and flee; but it is a journey, where what matters is, Seeing and Staying!