The entire week following the win, every single phone call that I had with anyone back in Pennsylvania was animated with the happenings surrounding the Stanley Cup win. In Pittsburgh, it was the talk at work, at the check out line in stores , on the radio, around dinner tables, … the whole city was buzzing with excitement and people were excited about the excitement. Even national news was reporting about the excitement surrounding the city.
Pittsburgh itself has 300,000 residents and last Wednesday the city packed in 400,000 people who came out for the parade and celebration of the team’s victory. Those 400,000 people did not include the tens of thousands of people glued to the t.v. watching and the many satellite parties happening in nearly every surrounding town.
As I watched the footage of the celebration of the Stanley Cup win on Wednesday and I listened to so many people sharing about what was happening in the city, I couldn’t help but notice how this great win, the triumph of this team that so many came to rally behind, had a way of focusing everyone’s attention, of prioritizing and reordering people’s energies. After all, last Wednesday, in Pittsburgh, over 400,000 people had reoriented their day in response to the Penguins win. I think this offers some beautiful insight into our human nature. And I think can be a springboard for us with the question… what is it that has determined my day today?
One of the 8 aspects of the missionary disciple is Conversion: that my relationship with the person of Jesus Christ reorients everything in my life. A missionary disciple allows this relationship with Jesus to reshape their lifestyle. This can means my relationship with Jesus has effected what my conversations are like, how I spend my time, what the driving purpose is behind what I do or don’t do is, how I relate to the world around me. And, as a missionary disciple, I no longer just live for me, or live as I want, but I seek to center my life around a person whom I love.
We can all have practical questions about how we are to live, how we are to spend our time, how we are to relate to the world around us. We need only look around a little to see the many programs and self help books trying to offer practical advise for living a happy life. Fr. Pedro Arrupe, who was the Superior to Jesuits at the time, perhaps offered the best practical advise to these questions when he said:
“Nothing is more practical than finding God, than falling in Love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.
It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in Love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”
This ‘falling in love’ and this ‘staying in love’ with God is the center of the Christian life, precisely because this love has a way of ordering our desires, our actions, our priorities. If we allow it, this love determines everything. If we allow it, this love leads us on the path to life!
Perhaps we can take some time this week to reflect and be sure we’ve made some time and space for the One we love. Are we present to Him as we go about our day? Have we related everything going on in our lives to Him… and have we allowed for Him to respond to us? Have we allowed the One who beholds us with great love to do so’?
And if we notice there are other things or people that have taken a ‘first place’ in our lives, we need only share that with Jesus in prayer and ask Him to help us.
Perhaps this week, we ask Him, “Lord give me the grace to desire you more than anyone or anything else.”
The suggested scripture reading for today is Psalm 63
Written by Kristin Niedbala
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