The Supreme Good of Knowing Christ

I want to tell you a little bit about my life. I spend much of my week hanging out with high schoolers, people who are 6 or more years younger than me. My friends and I often have highly theological conversations while eating pizza and drinking wine. I usually spend my Sundays at a Church from 11:00am-8:00pm going to Mass, writing talks on faith, taking time for prayer, and setting up for my youth group. I enjoy reading books on virtue, the lives of the Saints, and discipleship. And every other Thursday, I spend my nights with 50+ college students hearing talks about living out our faith and engaging in intense worship.

To a lot of people, the way I live my life is foolish. This list of things I do in a week would be, to many people, a list of the many ways in which I am naive or abnormal. And in no way did I give you this list to try to tell you that I am a perfect Christian and that I understand all there is to know about God. I do not confess to be a holy person and I think that for the most part, I probably embarrass the name of Christ by the way I live my life. But I still recognize that my life is rather different than that of the "normal" 23-year-old.

So why do I choose this life? The simple and most blunt answer I can give you is this: I have looked for love and for fulfillment in so many other places, but the love of God is the only thing that doesn't leave me searching. For so long, I placed my identity in things of this world. I was convinced that I had to spend my weekends in bars to have fun and to be normal. I thought that I would find fulfillment in having stylish clothes and a skinny body. I sought real love in impure and shallow relationships. But the reality is that even when I was at my lowest weight and had the cutest clothes and the "greatest" social life, I was still searching. I was still unfulfilled. I was still empty.

St. Paul says this in his letter to the Philippians: "I consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him". Paul says so beautifully and boldly that everything that he ever held in high regard had become to him like trash in comparison to the love he experienced in Christ. And all the things that I placed my identity in have become like garbage to me as I have come to know Jesus Christ in a more intimate way.

In his letter to the Philippians, St. Paul goes on to say "I have been taken possession of my Christ Jesus". And I can say the same for myself. Jesus Christ and the truth that he proclaims have changed my life. The Holy Spirit has empowered me to do things I never would have dreamed that I could do. The love of the Father has been more powerful and more fulfilling than I knew possible. And so yes, maybe my life is different than a lot of people my age, but I wouldn't change it for I know that this God that I seek is far better than anything this world can offer.

Recognizing that God alone suffices is a daily battle. Our society tries to convince us otherwise. Our friends, family, and co-workers present to us very different ideas of where fulfillment can be found. And so my prayer for each of us tonight is that we draw closer to God in prayer and in Sacrament so as to come to a fuller recognition that he is the only true fulfillment. May we each look at the areas of our lives in which we are seeking contentment from things other than God. And let us beg the Holy Spirit to aid us in coming to a deeper awareness that the only complete joy, peace, love, and fulfillment can be found in God. Peace, friends.