I thoroughly enjoyed this article and found much to meditate on and pray about today. I am drawn to this paragraph:

One other quote from Mere Christianity about this point about the volatility of the self (this is the very last paragraph of the book): “Until you have given up yourself to Christ you will not have a real self. … There must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away ‘blindly’ so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality: but you must not go to Him for the sake of that. As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether.”

My own conversion to the Church did not come about until I made the decision to completely surrender to Christ and put His will before my own. My daily struggle is to continue surrendering.

Thank you for the wonderful gift of your writing and passion for sharing the Faith.

God bless-

Randy Hain

I am reminded of the younger son in the Parable of the Prodigal Son who squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation… and spent everything. These images in the Gospel speak directly to your point. We are only who we are meant to be when we are in communion with God, striving to know and do his will… Indeed, it is this relationship with God, being in His Presence, that is the highest blessing of God and our good. What the prodigal son squandered was far more than material possessions, he spent his very self and lost his identity and was in grave danger of permanently being the “un-man”.

Thanks for a thought-provoking article.

Deacon Mike