A lot of us grew up in Catholic homes, attending Sunday Mass as a matter of course, the same way we attended school and wrote exams and ate our meals – just because it was a part of our life and culture and family tradition. As teenagers or adults, some rebelled or just lost interest and no longer identified as Catholic, while others just continued as a matter of course.
But being baptized a Catholic and growing up in a Catholic family no more makes one a disciple than hanging around in medical school makes you a doctor, or sitting in a car makes you a driver. Becoming a disciple takes intentionality and choice. You can’t sort of drift into a life-changing relationship.
But maybe you’re not sure. “I take my faith pretty seriously. It’s an important part of my life. Am I or am I not a ‘disciple’?”
Here’s a list of questions to ask yourself this Lent to know whether there is perhaps a further step God is inviting you.
1. Do I KNOW Jesus as a person, not just as a concept or name or idea? Am I able to talk to Him intimately every day, and believe that His presence is as real as my family members around my house? Am I able to chat to Him about what is going on in my life, or am I more likely to talk to myself, and remember Him at the end of a formal prayer at the end of the day… ‘in Jesus’ name, Amen.’ Being a disciple is primarily being in a relationship with Jesus, not just following a set of moral teachings.
If you don’t, ask Him to reveal Himself to you as a person, put your phone down, start sitting alone with Him every day for 20 minutes, and be very, very honest. He is more than able to reveal Himself to those who desire to meet Him.
2. Do I hear God speaking with me regularly? Not as an audible voice, but usually through the bible, through the events and people of my life. I remember once reading my bible on the way to a youth camp where I was a volunteer, and a young man of about 16 asked me why I was doing so. I told him God often spoke to me through the words I read. He seemed shocked. “God actually TALKS to you?”
If you don’t, tell him you’d like to hear from Him, and start reading a short passage from the bible every day. We can’t expect to hear Him if we will not use the means He uses to communicate with us.
3. Am I aware of my own personal sin? It’s so much easier to be aware of all the other sinners in the world than to take responsibility for my own selfishness, laziness, lack of love, deliberate neglect of God and His invitations and commands. Once you start rationalizing your sin, there is no room for a Saviour in your life. "Those who (think they) are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I have not come to call the righteous to repentance, but sinners." Lk 5: 31-32
If you are not and feel like you’re on the whole a pretty righteous person, ask God to shine His light into every corner of your life and heart and reveal to you the truth.
4. Am I engaged in ongoing repentance and conversion? It’s not enough to be aware of my sin, to wallow in my own dirt, and to get complacent about the fact that I’m a sinner. ‘Oh well, a sinner I was conceived in my mother’s womb.’ Shrug. I need to be actively fighting the sin in my life, going to Confession regularly, asking forgiveness of the people I am hurting, and allowing the mercy of Jesus to cleanse me of my sin. When’s the last time I asked someone to forgive me?
If you are not, go to Confession, and do a daily Examen. Ask God for a greater desire for holiness.
5. Do I talk and think more about Jesus than about anything or anyone else? This is a good way to know who or what my passion is. Not that we are not called to have interests, passions and hobbies as disciples, but where do our hearts lie? Who or what do I think of as I fall asleep at night? What do I get into passionate discussions about regularly? What do I promote and want people to know about? Even if we talk more about the Catholic Church, or a particular saint, or our community or organization, or some devotion, or some awesome leader, than we do about JESUS Himself, we’re missing out on the core of being a disciple.
If you do not, ask Him to help you fall in love with Him again (or for the first time).
6. Am I willing to change my plan when I hear God convicting me to do so? We all have plans, preferences and desires, and we often make our choices based on them. But a disciple brings everything to the Lord and allows Him to direct his or her life. It could mean giving up a plan to emigrate, pursuing reconciliation in a relationship that I’d rather wash my hands off, being open to a spouse and a life in a different culture than I wanted, using my free time for His work, making a career change, and a great number of other things.
If you are not, ask Him for the grace to trust Him more than you trust yourself, to give up the illusion of control, and to grow in obedience and abandonment.
7. Am I willing to obey the challenging teachings that Jesus gives me through His Church? If the only teachings I obey are the ones I am comfortable with, then I have chosen myself as God, and not Him. Trust includes obedience and humility. Just because I do not fully understand why Jesus asks the things He asks, doesn’t mean He is wrong and I am right. Like a child who takes his medicine or eats his vegetables because Mama says so, sometimes we obey even as we seek understanding. For example, staying away from artificial methods of birth control, accepting that IVF, surrogacy and artificial insemination are not legitimate ways to bear a child, choosing to love those with same-sex attraction while not endorsing gay marriage or relationships, reserving sex for marriage, rejecting abortion even in the case of unexpected or difficult pregnancies, rejecting the death penalty, etc. It also means accepting the smaller but also difficult requirements like fasting for an hour before receiving Communion, not eating meat on the Fridays of Lent, fasting on Good Friday and Ash Wednesday, attending Mass on Sunday and other days of obligation without fail, etc.
If you are not able to accept these teachings, ask God to open your heart and help you understand. There are good reasons for all these hard teachings, and we need to be willing to find out what they are. (Links below.)
8. Have I intentionally placed myself in relationship with other disciples? It’s easy to think you’re being a disciple on your own because there’s no one to call you out, to challenge you when you’re getting complacent or lazy or making excuses, and to encourage you when you’re slackening in zeal. It’s obvious that Jesus didn’t come to save us in isolation, but in community. Unfortunately our parish communities don’t usually offer an opportunity to grow in relationship with other disciples, so we have to be very intentional about fighting our laziness and our fear of vulnerability and either joining some kind of community or creating some kind of community.
If you have not, start looking for disciples and ask them where they find fellowship.
9. Am I regularly consuming content that remind me of what it means to be a disciple? Whether it is attending solid talks and formation, listing to podcasts, reading spiritual books (apart from the bible), learning about the saints, we need to consume healthy disciple-making food, or our growth will be stunted. I can see the difference when I stop doing that, or when I only consume mindless entertainment – I lose my appetite for God. We are what we eat.
If you do not, Lent is a great time to start! Ask me for recommendations: Abiding Together podcast, any Henry Nouwen or Fulton Sheen or Jacques Philippe, etc.
Related Links
[Video] Why We Don't Use Contraception in Our Marriage by Jackie and Bobby Angel
After the Vows: Sex Within Marriage By Brian Kissinger
Good stuff Suz
ReplyDeleteAmen ♡
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