Judas

On Sunday morning, I walked across the stage in Quincy University's 148th Commencement and it was a wonderful experience.  While I had this wonderful experience, I also came to another realization and it made me think of Lady Gaga's newest single, "Judas."  I don't like the entire song but, I do think that part of one of the verses can very well describe some of today's Christians, including myself.  "Jesus is my Virtue and Judas is the demon I cling to."  While demons are fallen angels and thus completely different from humans, and Judas was a human, I find that the sentiment is understandable.

We love Jesus and want to be holy, yet we are attached to one or more things that serve to draw us away from Him.  It's as if each of us has a "favorite" sin or area of sin and we do our best to hold on to it while we try to be good Christians.  There's a problem with that, though: we cannot hold on to both our sins and Jesus.  This is something that I need to work on myself.  We cannot hold on to both because if we want to enter Heaven, we will have to die to ourselves, which is obviously hard.  However, hard is not is impossible and something that is worth the work is rarely easy.

How do we do it though?  It's not like we're all saints.  That excuse doesn't fly though, as we're all called to be saints.  There are several parts to success, even though the majority of us may never be canonized.  Prayer, Sacraments, Accountability, and Scripture.  Perseverance in all of those is mandatory.  While I need so much work on all of those, especially perseverance (and consistency), I know I can count on God to help me.  Hopefully we will learn to let go of our Judas' and hold on to Jesus.