by Stephanie
'Like a stream is the king's heart in the hand of the Lord, wherever it pleases him, he directs it.' (Proverbs 21:1)
It's the beginning of March, and while we've gotten through the harshest time of year here in Connecticut, it's still just cold, bitter at times, with unpredictable weather. We're supposed to be getting another snowstorm today with 6-10 inches, and then some rain which will make for a muddy, mushy mess, mmm. This time of year it seems that my inner instincts all point towards hibernation. They plead with me: Don't get out of your warm bed just yet, why not reset the alarm again? But the shower's so warm, c'mon just stay another minute! You don't wanna leave the house, you've already got your sweatpants on! (If I put on my sweatpants I might as well just give up right there). Everything seems to take a lot more effort, going to daily mass early in the morning, going out with friends, exercising, basically anything besides sitting at home in my bathrobe. I'm sure there are many others who feel this way, and it occurs to me that it is really only will-power that makes the world go round, especially this time of year. If we all just did what we felt like, we'd be standing in the hot shower until the water ran out, or sleeping in our beds all day, or watching movies eating snacks until our arteries clog.
We'd really be zombies. Which reminds me of a movie I just saw recently with my sister called 'Warm Bodies.' Warning you right now, this is a spoiler, but it's anything a 6-year-old could've predicted from the commercials anyways. The movie takes place in a post-apocalyptic world in which most of the population have become zombies, with few normal humans left who hide out in heavily guarded towns. The main character, named R, is a zombie living (or dead actually) among other zombies. No one sleeps, they all just shuffle around very slowly all day long. You can hear his thoughts, but he is unable to communicate them to anyone else. Though, he does have a best friend that he occasionally grunts at. He has forgotten his own name and his whole history, he doesn't sleep or do anything, and he seems to really hate his existence. The only instinct he is driven by is his hunger for human blood, which he gives in to when he gets the opportunity. He seems to have some remorse for his action, but accepts it as a necessary evil. However, his world is turned upside down when in the midst of attacking a group of humans, he sees a beautiful blonde girl, and his heart lights up and beats, and he falls in love with her. He spares her life, and hides her from the other zombies. The more he hangs out with her, the more human he becomes, starting to walk less stiffly, and even talking. The other zombies start to catch this 'cure', and eventually in the end, they are accepted by humans again. The blond girl returns R's love, and R becomes fully human again. Now, you might be wondering what zombies have to do with being Catholic. But consider R before he knows love. His body is a cage, he is completely trapped within himself, unable to interact with others. And worse, he is unable to control his instincts and kills people to satisfy his own needs. This condition is much like sin, the cage of self-absorption, which allows our selfish desires to have control over us leading us to ignore those around us, and at it's worst, hurt those around us to satisfy our desires. We are rendered utterly incapable of love.
Contrary to this life of frozen desolation, we find Jesus Christ, who overcomes every selfish instinct that is part of the human condition, even the strongest instinct, survival, in order to love us. He disrupts our run on the pleasure-seeking treadmill by showing us the way of temperance, which sets us completely free to run the race we were meant for, for holiness, for putting God and our neighbor over ourselves. As love changes R from his life of icy desperation, and melts him into a human being again, we are changed by the love of Christ to become more human again. And as we become less self-centered, we are made flexible to become more other-centered. Next to Jesus, Mary was the most flexible human being to ever exist. She wanted God's will to be done so badly, that he could have an angel come down and ask whether she would give up her entire life to birthing and raising God's only son. She doesn't say, 'Well, lemme sleep on it.' She is eager to please the Lord, and not herself. She is like a stream in the hand of the Lord, to direct wherever he pleases.
As I write this from my warm bed (electric blanket and everything), I wonder how free I am to do the Lord's will? If the Lord sent an angel to ask me, right now, if I would go out into the night with nothing but my pi's and take a hot cup of coffee to a person without a warm bed to sleep in, would I say yes? Or would I say, 'Can we wait 5 months, then do it?' Are we as flexible as a stream or more like stubborn boulders, against which the Lord must do a lot of pushing just to make us budge? Do we see someone in need and hesitate to react, heeding the chorus of voices in our heads saying too much effort, too much sacrifice, not enough ME? It seems that we are in quite a predicament, but thankfully, if we just listen, Christ is speaking in these moments also. As we fall in love with him, we will hear his voice more clearly over our own and feel him melting our hearts to the point that doing his will is just natural and easy. And moreover, it's contagious. St. Catherine of Siena says, 'Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire.' The more we become the humans we were meant to be, the more others are drawn to it, and before you know it, as the blond girl notes about the zombies, 'they're curing themselves.' Now, we just happen to be in the midst of Lent, in which fasting, prayer and almsgiving are key practices, all involving self-denial. So lets resolve to hold fast to them, and when it gets tough, to keep our eyes fixed on the objective, becoming free to love as Christ was and freeing the whole world! 
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