Ditching the Mediocre (07/26/2025)

This week, I had a wakeup call. My mediocrity was showing. I should have seen it myself, but as in past experiences, it took someone else to point it out to me. I went for a cup of coffee with a friend and ended up getting a slice of truth served up so nicely. Sometimes it takes another to help us see ourselves more clearly.

At the coffee shop, I crossed paths with someone I would consider a friend even though we don’t know one another very well. But I believe we both care about the other. Intent is always important when another points out the obvious to us that we’ve chosen to ignore. He recognized me first, and kidded me for asking “Can I have a straw?” We both agreed, I should have asked, “May I have a straw?” I acknowledged his accuracy and corrected my request. And then he said, “I don’t see you at morning Mass.” And it hit me. I wasn’t expecting that. I was expecting, “It’s good to see you again?” or even “How have you been?” But he hit me with the unexpected. I had no response.

He wasn’t being mean or judgmental. He was just telling me he’d missed seeing me in an unexpected way. And you know, his seven words have stuck with me. I took it to prayer, I took it to the LORD because what so many chalk up to coincidence, I believe is providence. Our paths crossed and the LORD was in that place with us. And so, I laid it all out before the LORD. And I guess I’ve been missed in a good way.

And while I was at it, the LORD and I had a frank conversation. I began to recognize that there was more that I could be doing and should be doing on my spiritual journey. And so, I promised the LORD I would accept his invitation delivered to me in an unexpected place in an unexpected way by an unexpected person. I thanked the LORD for doing it in such a memorable way.

It got me thinking about something Fulton Sheen wrote: “The reason most of us are what we are – mediocre Christians, ‘up’ one day and ‘down’ the next is simply because we refuse to let God work on us.”  And I issued the LORD an apology, I asked for forgiveness for closng myself off from a source of the LORD’s grace.

Daily Mass was my habit for decades. I found it to be a win-win. It allowed me to focus on my relationship with the LORD intentionally daily and it allowed the LORD to nurture not only my faith but our relationship and my relationship with others. It gave me a peek into the living Body of Christ that individual and solitary prayer does not. I got out of the habit with COVID and then another round of cancer. But that should have been a “pause” and not a “quit.”

I thank the LORD for my friend who was willing to deliver the call to abandon spiritual mediocrity. I thank the LORD also for having someone who was willing to tell me I was missed. Both are gifts not everyone is blessed to receive. I pray that someday he will know how much his outreach mattered in the grand scheme of things and in my little world I call me.

I will return to daily Mass attendance next week beginning on Tuesday (we don’t have Monday mass at our church). And I will look for my friend in the pew. And I will give thanks for bringing such a friend into my life.

As we continue our spiritual journeys, let us remain open to those whom the LORD sends to invite us to leave our spiritual mediocrity, to increase our intentionality in our journey and in our encounters with the LORD and one another. And let us open ourselves to being such loving messengers.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.