A Living Sign (02/22/2024)

Last evening, I was privileged to be one of the interviewers for our confirmation candidates at our parish. We were given a set of questions that we were all to ask each of the candidates. One truly impacted me as I read it to the candidates. Basically, it asked how the individual will “express in your life” the graces of this relationship with the LORD and the living Body of Christ. As I listened to their answers, I couldn’t help but ask myself the same question. What signs do I give that I know and love the LORD and am committed to living that relationship out loud daily?

Am I a living sign of the power and presence of the LORD in the world? Am I that light upon a hill? Am I the salt that heightens the flavor of life for others? When people observe me, how can they tell that I know and love the LORD and that I seek daily to pick up my cross and follow in Christ’s footsteps through the power of the Spirit? Do I emit the mark of hope, joy? Do I give witness to others through my words and deeds? Am I an instrument of the transformative love of the LORD that has gripped my being? Or are my faith, hope, and love so personal and so shallow that I am indiscernible from non-believers?

The graces of a relationship with the LORD are personal but never intended to be exclusively beneficial to the recipient. The graces, we all know, are to be used for the love and glory of our LORD and in loving service to one another. How does anyone who meets me and journeys with me for a bit know that I seek daily to remain in Christ and to open myself so that Christ may remain in me? Am I the beacon I am called to be or a wimpy flicker?

I thought of all the “living signs” of my life that revealed to me through the Spirit what life in the LORD looks like on any given day: the woman in our community who always shows up when there is work to be done with a smile, the woman who always stopped to ask of my well-being and offered to pray with me rather than for me later, the man who volunteers rain or shine to serve as a crossing guard at church, my father who taught me that real strength is gentle and comes from faith and love rather than muscle, my grandmother who prayed always through her labors…oh, the list is so long, I cannot do it justice.

As we journey this Lenten season to the empty tomb by way of Calvary, let us each ponder what kind of sign we are to others of the power and presence of the LORD in our lives. Let us seek to surrender ourselves to love of Christ who gives us the Spirit who alone can turn our flickering faith into a beacon for others. Let us seek ways daily to externalize for the benefit of the world that which has changed us so utterly. Let us be true witnesses, true and living signs.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.

Thoughts? Questions? Requests? – katewiskus@gamil.com