Spiritually Awakened

Today I am emotionally exhausted, but spiritually awakened.

My day started watching the news revealing the destruction of a hurricane, followed by an email about a sophomore in college on our campus who had committed suicide. Two daily Masses followed, packed with grieving students entering our church for the first but, hopefully, not the last time.

Today I’m left with the same question Jesus asked in Luke’s Gospel: “Why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” (Luke 12:56) Despite the terrible things happening all around us in the world, we do not realize how much we need God.

When we open an app to see a hurricane’s path, we often ignore the rest of the headlines revealing a world turning away from God. We see school shooting after school shooting, families broken up by divorce, all signs that we still need our Savior.

We tear ourselves down with self-deprecating comments about our weight, our ability, or how we don’t compare to someone else. We choose to listen to Satan’s whisper over God’s voice and wonder why we are unable to hear God in prayer?

We are starving for God and don’t even know it.

Today, over 400 students in the midst of losing a friend to suicide decided to seek God to answer the question of why.

Love won over 2,000 years ago on the Cross, and love won today when a fraternity of men prayed a Rosary together on their front porch.

If we want to see God in the signs of our time, our focus needs to change from the headlines to the Word of God, from our sin to God’s overwhelming mercy, from death to eternal life.

Let us focus on the ways God inviting us to focus on His Word, mercy, and eternal life. Let us pay attention to how He is speaking to us in our hearts. And let us most of all bring this love to those starving for Him.

We are starving for God and don’t even know it. // @SoCalTriciaTClick to tweet

Let us abandon ourselves to God with this beautiful prayer today.

Tricia Tembreull is a California girl with a boundless passion for life. After two decades of ministering to teens and youth ministers as a trainer, ministry mentor, and speaker in Catholic youth ministry, Tricia now serves as Campus Minister at USC Caruso Catholic Center. She loves adventure and seeks it everywhere she goes. As an avid foodie, she enjoys testing new recipes out on friends and family, gathering them around the table to encounter Christ in one another and be drawn to the satisfying unity we crave in the Eucharist. She is a contributing author to our Advent devotional book, All the Generations. You can find out more about her here.