Our faith is not unreasonable; it is not a set of superstitious beliefs that are below rational thought (although that doesn’t stop me from wearing a lucky shirt on gameday). No, our faith is beyond reason; it is a surrender to the revelation – the insane revelation – of Christ’s divinity, beauty, mercy and promises of eternal life through relationship with Him.

Our God is the God of freedom. He longs to free us from our junk and fill us with His very self. Why? Because He loves us. Jesus is active in His pursuit of us. We must never forget that. That was the whole point of Him becoming one of us, to show that there was NOTHING He would not do to bring us back into relationship with Him.

These were sinful men, sinful like me, and yet Jesus wanted them present when His glory burst forth like the dawn. He wanted us there too, which is why we are called to enter into this mystery in such a profound way in the context of the Mass. We hear the words from the Father, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him” (Mark 9:7), and are reminded that it is good that we are here. This is the God that dispels the darkness within us by the brilliant light of His Face, put on full display here in this mystery.

To pretend like a temptation doesn’t exist is like surrendering before the fight even begins. I humbly ask you to bring this to the Lord as we enter the desert this week and allow Him to transform that temptation into an opportunity for grace and virtue . We have a God that doesn’t desire part of you but all of you, including the parts we don’t like. He doesn’t want to just change a part of you, He wants to transform all of you so He can elevate all of you to the fullness He so desperately desires for you. In order to do that, we have to shed what is old and corrupt in order to be made new in Him.

The leper, who fell at the feet of the Lord, came kneeling with expectant hope and unshakable faith that The Divine Physician could restore him if it was His will. When we let go of our firm grasp of control for our lives and our will, we encounter the merciful gaze of the Father of Abundance. He desires so fervently to douse us in His never-ending graces and mercies, dear friends.

Most of us often go through life looking for ways to avoid silence and busy ourselves with menial tasks and social media scrolling and forget that we need to rest and put down our distractions. During this season of COVID-19, this tendency has grown stronger as our homes (our traditional places of refuge) have become our quarantine units, schools and offices. We have forgotten that we need to create a space solely for returning to the Father to engage in intentional prayer.

While Our Lord’s authority is transcendent, He doesn’t rule with a hammer or from a throne; rather, He chose to come into our fragility and experience the world as one of us. He chose to come and encounter those who are plagued with sorrow and grief. He chose to come and heal the sick, deaf and lame with His own human hands. It was not enough for Him to have the ability to do these miracles. He chose to come and personally look into our eyes as He healed us of our afflictions, like He did with the man in the synagogue.

You were already chosen. You were chosen on the Cross. You were chosen by God and by your parents to enter this world. You were chosen to participate in the mission of the Church at your baptism and you affirmed that mission at confirmation. You are already on the team. All you need to do right now is start playing the game and rely on Christ to direct your movements. Let Him lead you and allow yourself to be led and together we will continue the work of a group of ordinary people chosen to help transform the world one play at a time, one catch at a time, one heart at a time.

Keeping the Lord to ourselves does not express the level of gratitude or heavenly peace that we possess as disciples. We are called to share Him with others, to bring them to Jesus, so that He may look at them and call them each by name. Let us strive to point others to Jesus by continuing to set our intentional time of prayer with our Lord, spending time with Him in adoration and worshipping Him in the Mass.

He desires to pour out an overabundance of His love on us, but He does not do so without our permission. As a true gentleman, He waits patiently for the Beloved to open up to Him and invite Him in. In turn, we must be willing to be vulnerable with the Lord and let Him know that we struggle to believe that He loves us as we are and that past experiences make it difficult for us to see Him as a good father who is pleased with us.

Our God is a God that invites us to wait in joyful hope, who performs miracles and calls us to expect much. There are seasons within the liturgical year that invite us into waiting and expectation - not to torture us or disappoint us, but because, time and time again, God desires to surpass all of our expectations.