Growing up in youth ministry, I always had my church friends and my other friends. Those two circles overlapped occasionally, but there was always a difference between the two. My other friends were fully aware that I was a part of youth ministry, with my Myspace posts about retreats, Life Nights, and tweets about praying to God; and yet, they accepted me anyways, Catholic and all. And then the inevitable happened — we all grew up.
As I began to serve more in ministry and attended college, I began to drift away from certain friends. Recently I’ve been reminding myself that this type of thing happens. You just see people less and less as life changes around you, as you change. Of course, I’d see them from time to time, for birthdays, holidays, and random outings a few times over the year. And of course we’d hop in a time machine and go back to our teenage years as if nothing had changed. But things did change. We all changed.
A few months ago, I hung out with a friend and I was called a goody-too-shoes. I laughed it off and didn’t think anything of it. We went to a concert, had some drinks, and had fun. It wasn’t until I reached home that the comment finally reached me. ‘Goody-too-shoes’. Most people would take offense to this, as if being ‘too good’ was something bad. And in all honesty, that’s how I felt about the comment: bad. As if I had lost some sense of credibility with my younger self, that this road of being a practicing Catholic stained me in some way. But after thinking about it more, I realized that I’ve been marked in the best way possible: marked by Christ.
The road to holiness is never-ending, but when you commit to Christ and the faith, it changes you. It makes you yearn for God and in turn, you yearn to be holy, in every sense of the word. You wish to do Him no wrong, but when you do (and you will), you wish to never do it again. It is not easy, following in His footsteps. There will be dry spells, lapses of faith, and maybe even a world-wide pandemic will shake you to the very core. But know that God is rooting for you. The whole Catholic community is praying for you. I know for that I would have given up a long time ago if I did not know of this abundance of support. So this Lent, I hope you will join me in praying, God sanctify me. Help me to strive for holiness. And although I fall and crumble, may I always remember that you will be right there to pick me up again.
Let us continue to be holy and let us continue to be good.
Night Owl Thoughts 