Find Your Water Into Wine

Clay Pots

I think by now we all can pretty much agree that we know that we’re called to serve and to proclaim the Gospel and the love of Jesus. But I’d like to start by talking about the not so pretty things that can become involved in our mission. Specifically, I’d like to talk about sin.

If you’re anything like me, you know that you want to serve the Lord with your whole heart. You would love to “pray without ceasing” and do all of the wonderful things that would deepen your faith, lead others to Christ, develop a closer relationship with our Lord, and like one of my favorite Christian songs says, be “a soul on fire.” But, let’s be real. We all fall short at times and find ourselves in a place where maybe we don’t feel so grace-filled. Where we feel a little distant. Where we know we should’ve done things a bit differently. Again, if you’re at all like me—this can feel like a roadblock. It can lead to that all too common self-doubt that then prompts questions like “How can I lead others to Christ if I’m so far from being perfect?”, “How can I talk to others about their relationship with our Lord when mine feels like a struggle right now?” or maybe even “How am I expected to serve in this role as a leader when I’m so aware of my shortcomings?”. I think we’ve all been there at some point, or at least I have. The awareness of our shortcomings coupled with our knowledge of the mission of evangelization can result in this kind of awkward state where we know we need to help, but don’t quite feel adequate to do so. But tonight, I’d like to shed some light on this topic in general and remind all of us why we should never, ever let that stop us. To touch on this topic, I’ll make three main points.

Point one: imperfect people are still called to lead. Pope Francis says, in Evangelii Gaudium, “All the baptized, whatever their position in the Church or their level of instruction in the faith, are agents of evangelization and it would be insufficient to envisage a plan of evangelization to be carried out by professionals while the rest of the faithful would simply be passive recipients.” To make that a bit more clear, ALL of the baptized, WHATEVER their position are agents of evangelization. That means everyone who is baptized is called to evangelize, REGARDLESS of what our instruction may be or what our theological knowledge is. In case you’re a little stubborn like me and maybe that quote didn’t quite do it for ya, let me show you another, also from the same writing: “Our falling short of perfection should be no excuse; on the contrary, mission is a constant stimulus not to remain mired in mediocrity but to continue growing.” I think I’ll say it again for the people in the back: “Our falling short of perfection should be NO EXCUSE.” Wow. That’s a pretty enlightening statement. When we think about it we realize that all of our mental excuses, all of our inner put downs, all of our feelings of inadequacy or insufficiency or self doubt or whatever should NEVER be what stop us from proclaiming this mission. But instead we should be reminded of St. Paul’s attitude about imperfection and mission: “Not that I have already obtained this, or am already perfect; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” Need I remind you that the most fearless leaders of the Church, both past and present, were all humans who were and are IMPERFECT just like us. People who were striving constantly for a deeper relationship with our Lord. People who faced temptation just like you and I do. But want to know what’s different? They never let their imperfections stop them. That’s not to say they didn’t recognize their faults- just read about St. Augustine and you’ll know what I mean. Oh no, they recognized their faults and failings and shortcomings just like all of us do but the difference is that they didn’t let it stand in the way of their mission. They believed so wholeheartedly in God’s abundant grace that they stepped beyond their sins to strive for greatness on this journey of missionary discipleship that we’re all called to live out. They knew in their minds AND in their hearts that the words our Lord spoke to St. Paul were true: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” And believe it or not, those words that St. Paul so wholeheartedly believed in are words that you need to believe in too.

So now we’re on to the second point: what do we do now that we know that we can’t let our imperfections stop us? Pope Francis talks about evangelization as a daily missionary duty. This encounter with others, or “informal preaching” as he calls it should seize as many opportunities as possible to spread the joy of the Gospel. But again, if you’re like me, you can get a little bit caught up in ALL of the joy of the Gospel and can start to wonder how you can fit all of the meaning and joy into one encounter. Luckily for us, there’s guidance on that too and Pope Francis says we should be “always keeping in mind the fundamental message: the personal love of God who became man, who gave himself up for us, who is living and who offers us his salvation and his friendship. Can we just pause to reflect on this concept for a sec? We have a GOD who BECAME MAN and SUFFERED AND DIED FOR US. Clearly that is a message we should be sharing! And luckily for us- Pope Francis talks about how it all starts—with personal dialogue. The sharing of thoughts, feelings, beliefs in a conversation that should always have the goal of pointing towards Him. But this is easier said than done.

And this brings me to the third point: find your water into wine. Um, what? Water into wine? Yeah, water into wine. Find your story or your “aha moment” or whatever you can think of that reminds you of the reason why you feel compelled to share this joy. Share a reason why you believe, share a story about when you saw Jesus, share something about how you’ve seen Him act in your life or how you’ve seen him act in the lives of others.

For me, I’d say that my water into wine story starts with freshman year. Basically, I was super stressed and worried all the time—staying up till all hours studying, panicking the mornings of tests, launching myself into stress induced hysteria while simultaneously neglecting to spend any time with our Lord aside from the one hour that I spent in mass each week. If you knew freshman me, you’d probably be like “wow this girl needs to chill”. And honestly, I did. The summer following freshman year I went to World Youth Day and truly had the first experience of real joy. I felt peace unlike anything that I had ever felt before—peace that I couldn’t even understand or wrap my head around. And I was shocked when I returned to Penn and this peace persisted. I was no longer the crying my eyes out before an exam kind of girl but instead found an incredible peace knowing and truly believing, that no matter what, God is in control. I was able to look past the assignments and projects and exams to recognize that I was called to spread this joy and peace that I found with others. And so, that’s my water into wine story. Everyone’s will be a bit different but the most important thing still remains: our water into wine should ALWAYS seek to point to the glory and goodness of God.

So, in conclusion there were three main ideas that I want all of you to know and believe: our imperfections cannot be a barrier to our mission to evangelize, removing the roadblock of worrying about imperfection can lead to incredible things with our mission of evangelization, and that our love for the Lord should always be the end result. I truly believe that with all of this in mind that our roles in the Church will grow and expand beyond our wildest dreams to glorify and serve our Lord.

Marya is a guest blogger who doesn't live in household but is very loved by our community! She is a junior majoring nursing and minoring global health. She serves on the Newman Executive Board as secretary and this talk is taken from a recent evening when she lead formation for the student leaders. Picture taken from World Youth Day 2016!