Step after step. Road after road. We are granted the opportunity to experience the joy of walking towards God through a life of faith.
It is a journey that constantly changes; at times we walk by ourselves, and at other times we walk with others like our friends and family, but one thing that is true is that we are never alone. There are so many points in life and in faith when we may feel abandoned with no one to turn to, but, let me tell you, that is a flat out LIE. Christ is always at our side. So often it is our own eyes that blind us from seeing that He walks beside us at all times, whether we notice it or not.
In moments of fear, doubt, or frustration it is our human tendency to ask “is anything really possible for God? Can he really save me from this crisis or that worry?” At least that is the question our actions raise when we are in constant fear or worry. It is our fallenness that makes it such a struggle to surrender. The daily choice to trust that God has a plan tailor-made to help you get Heaven if you lift ALL things to Him. We are allowed to not have every moment of our life planned and scheduled to the millisecond. in fact, that is the exact opposite of what God wants from us. All He asks is that we seek to glorify Him on Earth and focus our gaze on joining Him in Heaven. That is the goal to desire God beyond all things.
To have faith and trust that He will provide for our needs demands practice and patience. Just like with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, God is often right beside us, but our “eyes are prevented from recognizing Him” (Jn 24:16). We have to walk toward God so that we might eventually be close enough to glimpse His face in the creation He has placed around us and the people He has put beside us.
I have certainly learned that this takes time, and by time I mean a lifetime to learn how to surrender our worries, fears, joys, hopes, and desires to God. It’s the idea that you have to make the choice to trust and walk on the path that He stretches out before you.
Since coming to college, I have walked more than I ever have in my life. And it has been the act of making the journey to the celebration of the Mass on foot that has helped me to recognize what the pilgrims throughout the world and throughout the centuries have sometimes traveled hundreds of miles to be in its presence. It always has been and always will be Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. Faith is a lifelong pilgrimage, the final destination of which is Christ.
With each step we take towards Him, whether it is in the Sacrifice of the Mass or Eucharistic Adoration, slowly the veils of worry and anxiety that prevent us from seeing Christ’s face become thinner and thinner. As we learn to surrender more and more of our lives to Him, the more open our hands and our hearts are to receive all that He desires to give us—to experience even a glimpse of the Joy that Christ imparts to our hearts through the gift of the Eucharist, to feel as though your heart will burst out of your chest and you can’t keep from smiling simply because you have freely chosen to welcome Him into your life. It is getting to know Christ and recognizing Him in the Eucharist that fills us with the peace and joy to see Him not only around us, but also within our own hearts, and to walk the road to Emmaus and back again if need be, that like the disciples Christ might be revealed to us in the breaking of the bread even for just a moment.
Julia Danehy is a Sophomore in the William F. Connell School of Nursing a hop, skip, and a jump away from her home town of Fort Myers, FL. With the variety of her interests spanning about a million miles long, in her spare time she can be found exploring history, painting, spending time outdoors, whipping up some form of baked good, or reading anything to do with The Theology of the Body/philosophy in general.
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