THE BEACON ON THE BOULEVARD

         “The cat’s out of the bag.” A cat has adopted itself into my home. She has been coming around the house and school the last month or so. As the temperatures have started dropping, I was concerned this cat didn’t have a home. When she started sleeping on my porch, I started considering if I should to take her in. It bothered me for days. I would wake up with this on my mind, as I now cared for its safety. It was distracting my prayer. Finally one evening, from out of nowhere, I received the spark of clarity that put me finally at peace. Beyond words, then with words, I made a deal with the Lord. The deal I made: “I will take this cat in as my own, as long as it doesn’t distract me from you.” I love my home life and how I dwell there with Jesus, Mary and others. Prayer life has become vital to home, work, life and everything else. So with making any important decisions, we need to consult the Lord, pray, discern and seek His blessing in what we decide. No gift, undertaking, responsibility or relationship should be a distraction from Jesus and never a competition. Adopting a cat was no less of a decision. From that first night, I resolved to open my heart and home to this new little companion, but to not let her nor
anything else distract me from the Lord. Thus, things have been slowly settling in well.

       In addition to daily life, this is a good call for our Advent Journey ahead: Seek to not let anything distract us from the Lord. We know Jesus is Lord, but there are countless things that can distract us from Him. He knows we have gifts to buy. He knows we have a full schedule, obligations and events that haven’t taken place yet. The Lord who is the king of our friendship, affection
and love has given us gifts of other relationships. We embrace them as gifts, but not the answer to our happiness. Consequently the more we love the Lord first, the better we are able to love them. His love will draw out the love we are able to give, joy we want to share, patience they need of us and forgiveness we are obligated to give. We have pets to follow us around and keep us company, but may any affection we feel from them instead open our hearts up to our affection from the Lord. Give Him the gift of our friendship and longing to know Him more and He will feed us in whatever ways we need. In addition to the good, don’t let the bad distract us either.
May lack of affections, not make us “feel” His love is distance. Draw closer. Don’t let negative or struggling relationships consume and distract us. The more we focus on Jesus alone, the more
entirely we will find Him on Christmas.