All of life is a journey. We go from here to there. We start with nothing and end up with something.
The journey can be a quick trip or a long one. It can be something big like developing a cure, coming up with an invention, raising children or getting married. It can be ordinary like making dinner, cleaning the dishes, creating something out of nothing, learning something new, helping a friend, etc. The one thing all journeys have in common is that we can grow in faith, hope and love through them as we travel moment by moment and day by day to complete them.
GROWTH IN FAITH
Journeys can help us grow in faith because faith is the reason we say yes to the will of God. Faith is the reason for our beliefs in the teachings of Jesus. We understand that we say yes to the will of God, because we know in faith that God is our Father. Faith solidifies our gift of being His children. How does it solidify it? By the way we act towards Him. In faith we look up to God just as children look up to their parents. Just as children want to please their parents by saying yes to what the parents ask of them, we want to please our Father in Heaven and say yes to His will. Children know the parents love them, want what’s best for them and would never hurt them. We have that same trust in God, our Father. When we are doing any task with this in mind, it helps us to grow in the virtue of faith. We are seeing it as the Father’s will for us. It’s not just doing the dishes. It is a yes. It is pleasing the desires of the Father’s heart. It is glorifying Him. Faith is why we should always pray to be in the will of God. It places us in the midst of the Father’s loving desires for us. In the yes we bring God glory, but is not just a yes for the particular task at hand. It is a yes to having the faith that we are His children.
GROWTH IN HOPE
Hope is always being experienced with every task. We cannot be assured, even if it is a task that we’ve done many times before, that it will be done the same way. We must remain in the dark about all we do because God is infinite and how things were done yesterday may not be how they are done today. We hope to finish the dishes by a certain time in a certain way. Then a multiple number of interruptions takes place. In the end, because our hope is in God, what we hope for comes to be, but not how we thought it would roll out.
GROWTH IN LOVE
Love is hopefully present in all we do for both God and neighbor. All we do glorifies God. We are the prayer. All we do is either for someone else directly or indirectly. Let’s take up the example of the dishes again. Even if you lived alone, cleaning the dishes is a sacrifice of love that can be offered up for others. It may not mean anything today, but maybe next week a friend stops by. How uncomfortable they may feel if there was a week of dishes piled up. So even if it seems it is only for you, going back to hope, it will one day bless someone else. Even while blessing them in the moment of their visit, we know as we offered it up as prayer at the time we were cleaning, we were making a difference. As the Catechism says, prayer is expressed in both words and gestures (Catechism No. 2562). When we are aware that we are united as one with God and His divinity, by our very lives, we are the prayer.
SUMMARY
Prayer is foundational to our relationship with God. The more we work on our relationship with Him through prayer, the closer we will be to Him and our prayer time and active time will seem to be a seamless transition. It is the time in formal prayer that helps us see God more easily outside the time of prayer and growing in the theological virtues is no exception. Being mindful of these three theological virtues in all we do can help us to grow closer to God as they connect us directly to Him. Always being mindful that by faith we are pleasing the Father and are saying yes to being His child and also relying on the hope that what we are doing will be accomplished and matters are means to growing in both of these virtues. Of course , the virtue of love is not left out. God is love and we know by our faith that when we are aware that we are united to Him in everything that we do, we bring love to the world. At the same time, it is this love that enflames our faith and hope.
Whether we crochet or build skyscrapers, what we do at every moment always matters. It would not be God’s will for us to do what pleases Him moment by moment and then not have it matter. While some things may seem trivial to use as a means to grow in faith, hope and love, it is in being mindful of these little moments that we can have constant practice and, therefore, more easily put ourselves in the presence of God on a regular basis. We pause for a moment to note that by faith we are currently doing our task because we are a child of the Father. In that pause we are made aware of our hope for its success knowing hope never disappoints (Rom 5:5). We become conscious of our love that stirs us up and ultimately ends up energizing our faith and hope even more. We know that we are on some sort of journey, no matter how brief or how long, no matter what type of importance we have labeled it to have. Whatever the journey, they all keep our theological virtue muscles strong and make us conscious of God’s presence.
PRAYERFUL REFLECTIONS TO TALK TO GOD ABOUT
Are you spending time each day in prayer so that your relationship can grow in and outside of your prayer time?
MEDITATIONS ON FAITH
It is through faith that you are all God’s children in union with Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:26)
See how much the Father has loved us! His love is so great that we are called God’s children – and so, in fact, we are. (1John 3:1)
My friends, what good is it for one of you to say that you have faith if your actions do not prove it? Can that faith save you? (James 2:14)
MEDITATIONS ON HOPE
I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you prosperity and not disaster, plans to bring about the future you hope for. (Jer 29:11)
I depend on God alone; I put my hope in him. He alone protects and saves me; he is my defender, and I shall never be defeated. My salvation and honor depend on God; he is my strong protector; he is my shelter. (Ps 62:5-7)
We have this hope as an anchor for our lives. It is safe and sure, and goes to the curtain of the heavenly temple into the inner sanctuary. (Heb 6:19)
May God, the source of hope, fill you with all joy and peace by means of your faith in him, so that your hope will continue to grow by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Rom15:13)
Because we have this hope, we are very bold. (2Cor 3:12)
MEDITATIONS ON LOVE
Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Whoever loves is a child of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1John 4:7-8)
This love I speak of means that we must live in obedience to God‘s commands. The command, as you have all heard from the beginning, is that you must all live in love. (2John 2:6)
My children, our love should not be just words and talk; it must be true love, which shows itself in action. (1John 3:18)