Christ Like Availability
“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave me himself.” Galatians 2:20
As I make my way deeper into the Lenten season, I am reminded of the long list of things that I hoped to change or improve about my life. I pick some things to focus on in the fields of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Then, I look to see how these changes can most effectively be implemented. If you are like me, it is only by means of structure that I can be successful, especially when it comes to fasting and prayer. I thrive on structure, I need and desperately hold to the time I have set apart in the day to pray and the days that I fast. Yet, what I have come to understand about myself, this year more than any, is that I have become so attached to my schedule and to my routine, that I have made myself unavailable to the ones that I love and to those I should be doing this for.
Availability, grounded in humility and charity, can be a heroic witness to the love and self-sacrifice that Christ has for us. In these first couple weeks of Lent, I have seen myself become confrontational and impatient when a request is made of me, or when something comes up which conflicts with the time I had set aside to pray and further my spiritual life. I have been so committed to my plans, my schedule, and what I have in mind for how my time is best spent that I have been letting my vocation as a father and a husband fall to the wayside. My family and my students have been, in my eyes, burdens and stumbling blocks to my spiritual growth. How foolish, how selfish, how self-righteous.
My wife is pregnant with our second child, and is in full nesting mode. So what that means is, an hour before bed, she may decide to let me know that we are cleaning out a closet or moving furniture and reorganizing in preparation for the baby. God bless my wife, but she is a worrier and she hits her maximum stress level an hour before bed. One night last week, I had planned to spend the last hour of my day doing some spiritual reading and completing some school work when my wife requested I assist her with cleaning out what is a disaster of a storage closet and it was going to happen that night. I consented, but she could tell I was not happy about it. I was frustrated, I was resenting her, and I had no good reason to be upset. All she needed from me in order for her to sleep more peacefully was to help her clean for an hour. Yet, twenty minutes into it she called me out; she knew I was wishing I was elsewhere and it was making this task tougher for the both of us.
Sure I was obedient, but I was not a willing servant. As St. Josemaria Escriva says, “Your obedience is not worthy of the name unless you are ready to abandon your most flourishing work whenever someone with authority so commands.” (The Way) Of course, we must always pursue the spiritual heights that come with drawing closer to God, but we should not do so for merely selfish desires. We must do it so that we may live the Gospel more fully and be free to love as Christ calls us to. We should desire, as St. Paul says in Galatians, to no longer live for ourselves but so that Christ may live in me. My whole intention this lent should be to grow as a Father and Husband, to be Christ to my family, and to make myself more available to those that I love and am in charge of guiding towards heaven.
Men, we must seek always to grow in virtue and to come before God in prayer and through Sacred Scripture. Yet, never at the cost of our vocation as fathers, husbands, and men called to be the light of Christ in the world. Jesus often withdrew to commune with God through fasting and prayer, yet only in preparation for administering to those in need of him, in need of the Divine Word. May we, this lent especially, strive to achieve heroic availability, at the ready to serve God even if we must set aside the best of intentions. For God has much growth planned for us this lent as we die to self for the sake of the other.
“You’re not humble when you humble yourself, but when you are humbled by other and you bear it for Christ.” The Way
