Radical Change:

I entered the ministry at the young, misunderstood age of 17 years old and I have been a part of it for 5 years. However for someone who has been in the ministry for so long my spiritual development is woefully slow. Why, you ask? By nature I am the kind of person who has a lot of desires to do many things but fear, doubt and indifference gets in the way whenever I'm about to start a new endeavor. Doubt if I can accomplish anything, fear that I won't be accepted and ridiculed and indifference to cope with the other two that plagued me.

My theory in life so far has hence been this. Don't dream high, don't dream big. Do everything in moderation, extreme moderation, don't attempt something new, don't dare, just aim to survive. I grew up in the age where you can do whatever you want to do, you can be whatever you want be was the overriding theme in all the movies we watched, all the songs we listened to and all the books we read. This unnatural train of thought crept into my spiritual life as well. I was awed by people I saw around me, I was awed at the things they did for the Lord, I was amazed by their faith and certainty that the Lord will come through at all times. And a seed of hope was planted in my heart that maybe one day I could be like this. So tentatively I started considering God as someone who could pull me out of this state of ambivalence. Someone who could possibly allow me to have dreams without the fear of failing, someone who could accept me for all I am, someone who could instill hope in me when I started to doubt myself.

However my theory of life didn't allow me to do so. I believed in extreme moderation so I set extremely low milestones for myself. Just go to mass once a week. Pray once in a while. Read the bible when you're in trouble. And as such I was left behind as all around me were able to achieve great spiritual heights. Sometimes a great retreat would come along and I would be filled with fire, but it would die in the next few weeks. I wasn't convinced about my faith. And like this I would have highs and lows, highs and low, always in between, neutral and the voice of moderation. I was always straddling the fence neither here nor there, not too much in the world or with the Lord, I would just slip into whichever was the most convenient depending on the circumstances. And I blamed Him all the while. I blamed Him for not holding onto me, for not filling me with fiery zeal, for not going all out for convincing me about Him, I accused Him of neglecting me while I should have been accusing my half heartedness, and my fickle mind. I thought by being indifferent and not choosing either definitely I was playing it safe. I was neither bad nor good, neither hot nor cold, I was lukewarm. I wasn't hurting anyone by not making a choice so it's all good, right?

Wrong. My favorite person in the world Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen once said this "We have the choice to be either a saint or a sinner, up the peak of eternity or back into the chasms of despair and frustration. But we wrongly believe that we have another alternative, namely indifference a state of suspending animation without choosing to live against God or for him. But hibernation is no escape; winter ends, and one is then forced to make a decision—indeed, the very choice of indifference is itself a decision. White fences do not remain white fences by having nothing done to them; they soon become black fences. By the mere fact that we do not go forward, we go backward. There are no plains in the spiritual life, we are either going uphill or coming down. Furthermore the pose of indifference is only intellectual. The will must choose. And even though an “indifferent” soul does not positively reject the infinite, the infinite rejects it. The talents that are unused are taken away, and the Scriptures tell us that, “But because though art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will begin to vomit thee out of my mouth” (Rev. 3:16).”

This blew me away. It was against all that I had thought so far. It wrecked my whole belief system and brought me down to my knees. The time had come for radical change. But in order to implement this change I had to battle with the three forces that have been keeping me back my entire life. Fear, doubt and indifference. It was then that I realized that the three theological virtues faith, hope and love were the exact opposites of these forces. The opposite of intense doubt and questioning was faith, the opposite of my fear that things will go wrong was hope that all was for the best, the opposite of indifference that was slowly numbing me was love. So now I'm ready for radical change. Armed with these three and ready to make a choice. I choose to be a saint.

"And now these three remain faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." - 1 Corinthians 13:13