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And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.- 1 Peter 5:10

But on the eighth day and thereafter, they are able to be offered to the Lord.- Leviticus 22:27(b)

Mary’s virginity and giving birth, and even the Lord’s death escaped the notice of the prince of this world; these three mysteries worthy of proclamation were accomplished in God’s silence.

Catechism of the Catholic Church (498)

I usually don’t start off with scripture or readings from the Catechism. I usually start slow, building up an appetite for godly things. People see the bible and catechism and imagine a different perspective of where the writing may go, telling you what you need to do to be right with God, or simply scaring you away with words that were never intended to be scary. But if we see, as humans, these words as transcendent, as moving, as life in letters, as life-giving, as a life vest, as rescuers, we can become the lifeguard instead of the drowning victim. For God will call us out of the water when he is good and ready.

Sunday is always our eighth day, no matter where we are, a new chance at renewal, a new year’s resolution, once a week. And I’m beginning to see it in a different light. No matter where you are in your walk of faith, I hope you will too. Entering the church doors or maybe not ready to enter the church doors. You can enter the church doors, your innermost self. Just enter, and God will be ready to meet you.

Jesus rose from the dead “on the first day of the week.” Because it is the “first day,” the day of Christ’s Resurrection recalls the first creation. Because it is the “eighth day” following the sabbath, it symbolizes the new creation ushered in by Christ’s Resurrection. For Christians it has become the first of all days, the first of all feasts, the Lord’s Day (he kuriake hemera, dies dominica) Sunday:

(CC 2174)

Sunday provides the pathway and the light. It provides the opportunity to change. It provides a time to ask for forgiveness from the creator. It provides the opportunity to extend forgiveness. And there’s nothing the devil can do about it.

You can stop your addiction, your adultery, your dependence on the world, your anxiety, your depression; YOU CAN START OVER TODAY.

You can be bold, you can be brave, you can be free, you can be who you were created to be; YOU CAN DO IT TODAY.

Sunday is a gift, wrapped up in white, the gift of God, of His Son. Sunday is cleansing, beginning, the gift in and of itself, the gift of the Lord rising, the day to come out of your pit, the day to come out of your suffering.

Even if the week has plagued you, shaken you, forced you to hide in darkness, the light of Sunday has come. It is an offering, beckoning, Christ with open arms saying, Come to me my child, come to me.

The enemy he cannot touch you, he cannot hurt you, he has fallen. The greatest events this world has ever seen were accomplished without a word from the evil one. And if God’s plan was perfectly executed, Mary’s virginal conception, Christ’s crucifixion and His glorious resurrection, how much more will God’s plan in our own lives be accomplished if we move towards Him, if we move into Sunday.

I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.- Jesus

Amos 2:3, “I will cut off the ruler from its midst, and all the princes I will slay with him, says the Lord.”

Thank you my friend, see it had its purpose

Are you listening to too many motivational speakers? Faith seminars? Are you busy running around listening to everyone else but God? For weeks God gave me this verse in Amos. I sat with it, hurriedly prayed over it, but alas I left it behind; I had moved onto the next thing.

To hear God we must have a total hollowness, a place that only He can fill, a place where He can reside and live. For so long I would pray, “God, let my will be your will.” I always struggled with that prayer because it never seemed to sit just right in my spirit. I could never be on the same page as God.

So I sat with this verse again and again looking at it from a purely fleshly, worldly point of view. I didn’t want to hear what God had to say because I thought I knew anyway. So I pushed it aside again and again until I became consumed and miserable. God, why won’t you move me? You placed this gift within me, why are you making me suffer?

We all have a gift that God has given us, and I believe to some degree we are all using it, whether we are aware of it or not. But when God resurrected my gift it almost became a curse to me. Well God, you reignited this desire, why then why is it not going anywhere? I would hear these messages that I dreamed too small or my faith was just not big enough and I’d torture myself with them. Over and over again I would say, “God, why? God move me! I just can’t take it anymore.” It became borderline obsessive to the point I concentrated only on that thing He had placed so deeply in my heart.

“I will cut off the ruler from its midst” (NAB Revised)

“I will destroy her ruler” (NIV)

And finally, finally, the word broke free. I had let the gift rule me! I had focused and concentrated all of my attention on it, hoping praying that my pleas to God would be heard. But by shifting my attention, I made it my ruler. Our gifts should never rule us, only He is allotted that special place.

So I sat with that as I listened to Him. I thought of all the mornings where I would blindly just open the readings for the day, the devotion for the day and they were just words. I didn’t ask Him first what I should be reading, which reading was for me. I focused on what I wanted to hear and couldn’t and wouldn’t accept His will. I don’t for one minute think I did it on purpose. For most of us, it is through this refinement process where we find truth.

I don’t believe now that my will will ever be his will completely. I am after all still made of flesh and bone. And if He really felt that way, He would have included that verbiage in the Lord’s prayer; but that’s not what it says. It simply says, “Your will be done.”

And I have to believe He knows better than me. And I have to believe that He wouldn’t have given me a gift just to sit stagnant. And I have to know time is eternal and that the Holy Spirit is real, and that if I really wanted to I could completely immerse myself in Him and accept His will. But not in the way that I was thinking about it before.

I know now that His will is greater than mine will ever be, that He must be the ruler. There is something so sacred and sweet about knowing I can completely surrender to that, wake up tomorrow and say, Lord, what do you want me to read, what do you want me to do? We all can have that freedom, if we empty our prayer closets in that way, there is so much more room to fill them.

Father,

I crave your will and want none of my own. Empty me of my own desires so that yours may shine through. Let me surrender gently, knowing that you will catch me. This is the jump, this is the risk, which I know is really not a risk at all.

In Jesus name,

Amen