Living Our Lives for Christ and His Will
Working in a political career as a person of faith brings challenges and opportunities. The interns started their year on retreat to ground and prepare them for the year to come.
The integration of faith into our daily lives is something far easier said than done. We are constantly faced with decisions, some which can come into direct conflict with the very essence of our Christian faith. Life in the public sector does not in anyway discriminate against these choices, and as Catholics, it is essential that we are fully grounded in our faith in order to respond without compromising our faith, but whilst remaining loving and respectful at the same time. Our second week of our internship on retreat enabled us dedicated time to fully ponder and prepare what it means to live out our faith in public life.
As Catholics, it is essential that we are fully grounded in our faith in order to respond without compromising our faith, but whilst remaining loving and respectful at the same time.
A retreat is a concept which can always feel slightly daunting. There is a sense of the unknown, not only due to the typical association of it consisting of a time of silence in order to cut off from the world and focus solely on God, but because there is a sense of unknown that accompanies it. We were incredibly blessed to have Fr Dushan lead us during our retreat and whilst he did encourage the value of silence during our retreat to completely allow the Lord to speak to us, he provided us with daily individual spiritual direction and workshops on different ways to pray, in order to explore different ways to allow God to speak to us. This ranged from Lectio Divina to praying with art.
So often it is far too easy to get caught up in the pressures and expectations of the world, that it can be far too easy to forget about the real purpose of our life: living our life for Christ and his will, not our will.
Something which spoke profoundly to me consistently throughout the week, both in Spiritual Direction and in Lectio Divina, was the differentiation between ‘our will’ and ‘God’s will’. So often it is far too easy to get caught up in the pressures and expectations of the world, that it can be far too easy to forget about the real purpose of our life: living our life for Christ and his will, not our will. The parable of the Good Samaritan is a perfect example of this: are we completely preoccupied with our own lives like the priest and Levite that we forget to live out our faith in our daily lives? After a lot of prayer and reflection, I feel this is a key message God spoke to me during the retreat and something which I will be constantly reminding myself of throughout my time on my placement, especially when those challenging decisions arise.
