driving home the point

Often, especially in the spiritual realm, I have found that when there is something that I am dealing with - whether it be prayer, forgiveness, sin, relationships, or whatever - it seems like that topic seems to come up in everything I read or hear. 

So most recently, the idea of giving everything to God - not just 95% - has been playing on my mind.  I have been praying about it, as the Good Father advised, and that has helped a lot.  Prayer doesn't change God, it changes us.  It seems like at least one of the readings at every Mass I've attended in the last month or so has been about giving everything to God or trusting God.   Same thing is true of the psalms that I pray or any reflections that I pick up. 

Even music gets into the act.  The other day, I was coming home from somewhere, listening to a Christian music radio station when I heard the song, "Who Am I" by Casting Crowns.  I've liked this song for a long time. 


Who am I?
That the Lord of all the earth
Would care to know my name,
Would care to feel my hurt.
Who am I?
That the bright and morning star,
Would choose to light the way,
For my ever wandering heart.

It ends: 
I am a flower quickly fading,
Here today and gone tomorrow,
A wave tossed in the ocean,
A vapor in the wind.
Still you hear me when I'm calling,
Lord, you catch me when I'm falling,
And you've told me who I am.
I am yours.....


So I sat under the carport listening to (singing along with) the song, and as the final chorus of "I am yours" came on, I could almost feel that 5% or so that I want to hang on slipping away.  Really, it is pointless to hold on to what is not ours, anyway.  It is a powerful illusion that we are in control.

Tonight's Gospel and homily were yet another example.  The Gospel was about the woman who gave her last 2 coins - who from her poverty gave everything she had, because she deemed God worthy of everything that she had.  I've heard that one before.  It touched me then, too.  She, in her humility, recognized her total dependence on God.  The opposite of humility is pride and arrogance - thinking that we are running the show, that we don't owe everything to God (or that He owes us).  The homily continued to drive home the point, that we can hold nothing back. Our time, our treasure, our talents are ALL God's.  God held nothing back from us.  He felt that WE were worthy of his suffering, dying, and rising....

The good Father then challenged us:  Tonight during the Consecration, when we pray, "Take this all of you...this is my body..."  look at Him, and say to Him, "Lord, take MY body... Take MY blood."  Powerful stuff, I tell you.