As I reflect on my own spiritual journey with Jesus, I see a bridge, a point of transition that marks the separation between two types of existence—two worlds, a world focused on self and a world focused on God.

Unfortunately, today we live a world where so much caters to “self” and the rights of self…We are very slowly and carefully socialized to commit to the total fulfillment of ‘self’. Our priorities revolve around “Me, myself and I”. We believe that the goal of life is “self fulfillment” and we move towards the goal as we feed on pleasure, power, status, things, exciting experiences etc.…The check list of things we desire is long and it keeps on growing and where is God on the list? Where does He exist in our schedules?

On the other side of the bridge, the world looks different as we enter the world of the Holy Trinity, “Father and Son and Holy Spirit”…a veil is lifted from the eyes of the soul, whereby we can see the true source of all joy…God!…We can glance back over the bridge and realize that the pleasures we were seeking before were rooted in selfishness and now our appetite for the things of God begins to grow…Our priorities begin to shift as we consider ‘how to please the Holy One we love?’…. ‘How do we say thank you to Jesus for His infinite sacrifice?’… ‘How do we give our lives to Him totally?’ ‘How do we make our lives a living prayer, where we offer everything to Him.’

I know that God has taken my hand and allowed me to cross this bridge. Every day at the time Jesus died for us, 3pm, I contemplate His Passion as I pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. Having seen through the eyes of my soul how much Jesus suffered for me, I have discovered how deeply I want to serve Him and please Him…He is so worthy and yet He waits and waits for His people to love Him. I don’t want to make Him wait anymore.

St. Catherine of Siena, born in 1347 wrote a book called “The Dialogue” in which she records a conversation she had with God. In this excerpt, God the Father describes true love…God, the Father tells Catherine that Jesus “is the Way and the Door by which you must enter into Me…When therefore the soul has arrived at seeing, knowing and tasting, in its full sweetness, this light, she runs, as one enamored and inflamed with love, to the table of holy desire: she does not see herself in herself, seeking her own consolation either spiritual or temporal, but, like one who has placed his all in this light and knowledge, and has destroyed his own will, she shuns no labor from whatever source it comes, but rather enduring the troubles, the insults, the temptations of the devil, and the murmurings of men, eats at the table of the most holy Cross, the food of the honor of Me, the Eternal God, and of the salvation of souls; seeking no reward, either from me or from creatures, because she is stripped of mercenary love, that is of love for Me based on interested motives, and is clothed in perfect light, loving Me in perfect purity, with no other regard than for the praise and glory of My Name, serving neither Me for her own delight, nor her neighbor for her own profit, but purely through love alone. Such as these have lost themselves, and have stripped themselves of the Old Man, that is their own sensuality, and having clothed themselves with the New Man, the sweet Christ Jesus, My Truth, follow Him.”