A Catholic Rose

It’s bad. And it’s only going to get worse.

Sometimes, that’s how life can feel for us. Whether the roof’s actually caving in on us, or we’re just getting beat down by the petty setbacks of life. Whether it’s the one big thing, or thousands of little things that keep piling up, really doesn’t matter much.

Because when life feels like that – no matter how we got there – it’s easy to get tunnel vision, to get stuck. To feel like we’re all alone.

And either end up in despair. Because it’s just too much for us to handle.

Or feel like we have to do it all ourselves. And finding out the hard way that we literally can’t.

Either way, we end up in the same place. Feeling worried. Overwhelmed. Burned out. Alone.

All because we’re making it harder on ourselves than it has to be. By trying to do something that we were never meant to do. By trying to do it on our own.

So what’s the alternative? What were we meant to do?

It’s simple. So simple that it’s easy to miss. In the middle of all of the setbacks and just busyness of life.

Even in today’s Gospel. It’s easy to miss. In the middle of all of the bad things that Jesus talks about.

You and I were never meant to go through life feeling abandoned and stuck.

You and I were never meant to do it alone.

But sometimes, that is what it feels like. Like we are one our own.

Actually, that feeling that we are alone? That’s the great lie that being overwhelmed tells us.

But no matter how loud that lie is. No matter how strong that feeling is. No matter what it feels like. It cannot change the simple reality that God will never abandon you.

Even when you can’t feel it, God is still there.

In the words of Pope St. John Paul II, “Remember that you are never alone. Christ is with you on your journey every day of your life!

He has called you and chosen you to live in the freedom of the children of God.

Turn to Him in prayer and in love. Ask Him to grant you the courage and strength to live in this freedom always.”