I just finished watching part I of a DVD by Rev. Robert Barron titled Untold Blessing – The Three Paths to Holiness.  For you who have followed this blog, you know that I have read and commented on the book by St. Alphonsus, The 12 steps to Holiness & Salvation and it appears that the three steps by Father Barron will encompass Alphonsus’ twelve due to their titles: Finding the Center, Knowing You are a Sinner, & Your Life is Not about You (the one I anticipate the most).

In the first part, Father Barron made the correlation about finding The Center by relaying the story of Martha and Mary, a story that has taken up lots of thought and discussion for me during this Lent.  Father Barron notes that this is not about Mary doing the right thing and Martha needing to stop worrying about food and drink, but it is about being centered on Christ.  He proposed that if Martha sat at the feet of Christ and Mary was preparing the meal, Martha would still be fretting about things and her mind and spirit would be going in many directions and that Mary would still be focused completely on Jesus even in the process of preparing supper.  Jesus’ chastisement of Martha was not about what she was doing, but where her heart was; where her focus was not.

This led me to think a bit about my life and what and why I do what I do.  Father Barron went on about detachment (Chapter 5 of the 12 Steps to Holiness & Salvation) and how we must separate ourselves from the worldly and be focused only on the Will of the Father.  I pondered again how important it is not to worry about fortune; not to fret about success or popularity; not to be troubled about what is going to happen tomorrow.  I am starting to see that it is truly  not about me, even not about my friends, family, and community; but truly about my God; & if it becomes completely about the Lord, my life and the life of others around me will fall into place just as God wills it.  Alphonsus wrote this about true detachment; “Faith teaches us that nothing g happens without the permission of God.  If, therefore, we suffer the loss of our good name or our temporal possessions, God does not of course will the sin that is thereby committed, but He wills or permits the suffering that falls to our lot and He wills it for our good.”  Here again is that lesson on the importance of suffering – does that mean more lessons coming on mortification!!!???

Father Barron then went on to talk about Finding the Center, which of course is Christ.  He told the story of a famous stained glass “rose style” window in Paris named the Wheel of Fortune.  This window depicts the struggle of life and how we go from being on top and rich and powerful and popular (and the anxieties of being on top and needing more to be satisfied) to the next position which is the inevitable fall to the bottom of the wheel and being down and out to the upswing of the wheel and climbing back (with the help of God) to start the cycle over again.  He notes though that our goal is to climb from the spokes of the wheel to the hub, the center which is Christ.  This part of the wheel that stays centered and all pivots around it.  Logically, if we are centered in Christ we will not fret, we will stop worrying about loss of fortune and will simply accept our lot in life as God’s will for us.  Again, it goes back to what Paul teaches us, “we are brought down in order to be strengthened, we are made low to help us to reach higher.”

It is becoming more apparent, even for a thick headed lout like me, that these paths to holiness are the true paths to happiness.  The walk to holiness and sainthood is the only walk to contentment.  It is not about the fading rewards of this world, but the everlasting riches of living a life in Christ.  If Jesus is our Center, if God is what we live for, if the Holy Spirit steers the ship; no matter how bad the storms are in our lives, we will arrive safe and secure when we are called to face our Judge.  I must keep my focus, no matter what -  & the next two parts of the DVD  – Knowing You are a Sinner and Your Life is Not about You will surely further my walk to Holiness and my goal, my Salvation.