Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Have you ever seen a caterpillar grow only halfway to it’s potential? Like full on about to leave the cocoon and then suddenly just stays there. As half a caterpillar, half butterfly. Imagine how strange that would be. Even for us as humans, we think, dang, that caterpillar never became the butterfly it was promised and meant to be, why would it just stop halfway? Now, not to make it about us, but… Do you see yourself as that? Wanting to blossom, but something holds you back? Imagine if we decided to only live up to half the butterfly we were made to be, not almost be, made, as in destined. If we knew, only if we knew, that there was so much more out there for us. So much more color and beauty for us to bloom out to be. Yet, we do know. Don’t you think?

In Sunday’s second reading from Colossians 3, we are being challenged to do just that. Think about some of the things that may hold us back from being that epic, gorgeous, yes this includes you fellas, butterfly that God desires you to be. Count them in your head. I challenge you to write them down on a piece of paper and make a prayer. To let them sit in a bowl of water and watch them dissolve in the living water of Jesus Christ. God’s word says to us today, “…since you have taken off the old self with its practices, and have put on the new self, which is being renewed, for knowledge in the image of its creator” (Colossians 3:9-11). When we know the goodness that God promises us in our new full lives, our butterfly selves, we are flying our way straight to heaven.

If you’re like me and love St. Ignatius of Loyola, then you know that we celebrate his feast day on Sunday. St. Ignatius of Loyola was a man that lived out the fullest version of his butterfly self no matter what the environment was around him. He was ridiculed for his holiness and looked down upon for his devotion to God. During the presiding of his concelebration Pope Benedict XVI stated the following about St. Ignatius, ““St. Ignatius of Loyola was first and foremost a man of God who in his life put God, his greatest glory, and his greatest service, first” (The Catholic Telegraph, July 31. St. Ignatius of Loyola).

Now, I’m not telling you that if you put God first, your whole life will be peaches and cream. What I am telling you is that if you put God first, your new life will shine ever so brightly and be fully lived. Not because life around you will get easy, but because you are allowing Jesus to dwell in you, speak to you, and guide you.

So, when you listen to this Sunday’s readings, really sit with the fact that all God wants to do for you is help you bloom into who you were made to be, in the purest form, simply because He loves you. So go ahead, write those things down, and let God dissolve them away. Because as scripture today says, Christ is all and in all, including those things that hold you back from Him.