February 13, 2025 // Thursday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
Read the Word // Open your Bible to today’s First Reading: Genesis 2:18-25
Reflect on the Word //
Where do I fit in? What is my place? Do I belong? Lonely, isolated, longing for authentic friendship. I wandered the halls of my high school asking these questions. Everywhere I looked there were groups, cliques, teams—there was community—but I just didn’t feel like I fit in anywhere. I tried so hard to be “one of them,” but how could I be one of them if I didn’t know who I was?
Lord, You have always seen me, just like You saw the first man and woman in the garden. You know me more deeply and fully than I could ever know myself. No matter how hard I try to discover who I am and where I belong, I will always come up empty if I leave You out of the picture. I must ask You who You created me to be and turn to You and receive from You the gift of my identity.
You, Lord, created me not to exist in conformity with the world, to be just like all the others, but to be myself in You. You did not create me for isolation, loneliness, and longing. You created me to belong first to You and then to all those You place before me day in and day out. You did not form my eyes to see as the world sees, but to gaze upon Your children with Your look of love, to recognize Your presence in them. You did not make my mind to know and understand as the world knows, but to know You, and the truth of Who You are.
When we wonder where we belong and what we are made for, the Father looks upon us and declares, “it is not good for [her] to be alone” and He gives us helpers (Genesis 2:18). At every stage in life, He places us in the presence of those who mirror our dignity, our identity, in their gaze of love and confidence in their own identity. We must unashamedly receive that gaze of love and, in return, mediate the Father’s love to all those we meet.
Relate to the Lord // Get in His gaze today and receive your belovedness, whether in quiet prayer or Eucharistic Adoration.
Sister Maria Fatima grew up in Rhode Island and entered the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist in 2005. She holds a MA in Theology from the Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity. Sister is in her eleventh year of enlightening middle school minds and drawing hearts to Jesus while teaching religion and history. She currently resides at the motherhouse in Ann Arbor, MI, having previously taught in Texas, Florida, and Ohio. She is a contributing author to our Lent devotional All She Had.
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