Live Greater Take Your Places

"There is no way back; we are here in the city which he rules, the city in which he will suffer. To enter with him means to suffer with him, to die with him, and finally at the end also to rule with him…This is our comfort: that we shall see Him again"

-Sister Amemilana Lohr

May the Lord give you His peace!

So here we are friends, we have finally made it to Holy Week or Jerusalem if you will. We have been traveling here all of Lent and now we find ourselves in the holiest week of the year and I pray we are better for taking the journey. I pray for you like me, this week feels different. I remember when I was little this week would pass like any other week. It is almost like I was not aware of the significance of the story. Sure I knew Jesus died on Good Friday and we had a big Mass on Easter to celebrate Him rising from the dead. But it never really sank in. Only by God’s grace, in the past few years of my life, things have been different. I pray they are different for you this year as well.

I was talking to a friend the other day that passed on this quote to me, "every act of obedience is a dress rehearsal for when we are ultimately called to give our lives like Jesus did." It got me thinking about how sometimes I struggle with the little acts of obedience, blowing them off as if they don’t mean much. How far from the truth! Think about the times in our lives when we get irritated when our parents ask us to do something. Or perhaps when we give an average attempt with a certain task or responsibility at work, or even an assignment at school. Every act of obedience is a dress rehearsal for the big show…the big game….or whatever you want to call it: the time when Jesus will ask us to give up our lives for Him.

You see my friends, we live in a romantic world, where it seems that we all would say, "of course I would give my life for Jesus." But then when we look at our lives and they seem to answer the question differently. Great saints did holy and great things for the Lord not just in one moment, but in every moment and that is what made them saints. St. Maximillian Kolbe, the great Polish saint who did in Auschwitz concentration camp, was able to step forward and give His life for his fellow prisoner only because he had given himself to the Lord in obedience every other day of his life. Stepping forward was the norm for him and he didn’t have to think twice about it. Or insert a name for your favorite sports star. They make the big plays in the big games only because they make them every day in practice. In whatever experience, it is not different for us.

This week we look to Jesus and see how His whole life comes down to a period of three days where our salvation is won. Now that is a BIG game. Open the bible this week and read the story of our Lord’s passion. He was able to achieve our very salvation because He was obedient to the Father’s will. Was the task hard? Sure, he was betrayed, denied three times, beaten hundreds or thousands of times, carried a cross, was nailed to it, and hung upon it to die for our sins. Yeah it was hard. But my friends, in every moment of our Lord’s life he chose to be faithful to the Father’s will for Him and saying yes in every moment allowed to say yes a final time.

I just saw a musical this weekend so my apologies for the show analogies. But, it is time to take our places. It is time to start say "yes" every moment of our lives to God and to His will. This week let us say YES with Jesus as He teaches us how to give our lives in obedience for the salvation of the world.

Show time!

God Bless You,


Rusty

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