the world was changed forever on that friday at 3 o’clock when jesus took is last breath up there on the cross.  it would never be the same.  we would never be the same.

during this lenten season, i followed along with matthew kelly’s best lent ever daily lenten reflections, and i’m so glad i did.  it really was the best, most uplifting lent ever, thanks to this program which costs nothing.  matthew kelly, a down-to-earth catholic guy with a hilarious australian accent and a gift of translating the bible to our day and culture, posts a short, inspiring video [less than two minutes long] every day during lent on the dynamic catholic website that helps you focus on one thing throughout the day that can help make you a better version of yourself and more like god.  his messages are relatable and actionable, and they make you feel empowered to live out your faith.  the link to the daily video is sent to your email each day so you can open it up and watch it when you have a moment in the day.  it’s all completely free and it’s completely wonderful – i’m going to miss the videos so much now that lent is about over.  next year, i will try to remember to post about them at the beginning of lent in case some of you want to follow along with them too!

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here are some of matthew kelly’s messages over the weeks that really hit home for me:

: :  god is ALWAYS inviting us to a fresh start.  he wants us to have a deep, dynamic relationship with jesus.  jesus came to bring order and clarity to our lives, to our relationships, and to the world.

: :  what will you say when jesus steps towards you, looks you in the eye, and says, “who do you say that i am?”  …that’s the question that we all have to answer in our lives.  it’s inescapable – eventually we all have to answer it.

: :  the evidence of jesus is overwhelming and inspiring.  whether or not he existed is completely beyond dispute – we can prove that he walked the earth.  however, we can argue about whether or not he rose from the dead or performed all the miracles, as the resurrection can’t be proved.  there’s lots of evidence it happened, and it would certainly be an astounding conspiracy if he hadn’t risen from the dead, when you think of the millions of people across the world that have followed christianity over the last two thousand years.  but maybe jesus didn’t actually want us to be able to prove the resurrection.  if we could prove it, there would be no room for faith.

: :  as christians, we’re called to be people of possibility, NOT people of impossibility.

: :  there’s nothing that you can do in your life that could cause jesus to stop loving you.

: :  in the most positive sense of the word, jesus was a radical.  he really turned things upside down so that people could see the truth.

: :  the heart of the gospel is generosity.  jesus is inviting us to practice radical, immense generosity, just like he practiced throughout his life.  he wants us to be generous with our praise, our appreciation, our compassion, our patience, our money, our love, and so many other things.

: :  the soul of the gospel is forgiveness.  everybody needs to forgive somebody.  we need to ask ourselves, “who is that person that i need to forgive right now?”  we can’t experience peace without forgiveness.

: :  we should not judge, so that we will not be judged.  people in our world have opinions about everything – we have opinions about everything – and god is trying to liberate us from this.  he’s trying to teach us to have acceptance rather than judgment.

: :  jesus took these 12 guys [the disciples] from all different walks of life and he did life with them – they did life together.  we need people to do life with.  we need people to tell us we’re being too hard on ourselves, we need people to tell us we’re being too easy on ourselves.  god loves people, he loves relationships, and he loves community.  you can move through life quite anonymously in modern culture, but god doesn’t want that to be the case for us.  he wants us to know and be known.  additionally, jesus was constantly – not occasionally, but constantly – taking people on fringes of society and putting them at the center of the gospel, making them the most important people in the gospel stories.   he invites us to do the same thing – to go to the fringes of society, to the margins of life, and place these people in our own narrative.

: :  we give our time and our money to the things we value the most.

: :  there’s a gap between our lives and the gospel, and we’re always trying to close that gap.  we go to church on sunday to work on the gap, we read scriptures to work on the gap, we serve others to work on the gap.  and many of us might think, “i’m a pretty good christian – i’m better than that girl or this guy…”  but this is the sin of comparison.  it stops us from growing and stops us from accepting god’s invitation to be transformed into the person he created us to be, the best version of ourselves.

: :  one very important question to ask ourselves: “how’s my prayer life?”  – prayer changes everything.  if you get this one thing right, everything else in life will be easier to deal with.  the christian life is not sustainable without daily prayer.

: :  the lord delights in being with us and talking to us, in conversation and in prayer, just as a father delights in conversation with his child.  the lord wants us to have spontaneous conversations with him throughout the day.

: :  think about it: if christians behaved like christians, we would change the world radically and quickly.  we’re called to dance for joy in the presence of jesus.  that joy is contagious, and it’s our job to bring that joy into the world and into people’s lives.

: :  we all have blind spots.  we don’t see things as they really are, especially ourselves.  humility is essential if you want god to lead you in powerful ways.

: :  as christians, the biggest lie that we tell ourselves is that holiness is not possible.  but once we get in this mindset, we’re completely neutralized as christians.  christianity becomes a spectator sport.  rather than participating in the epic story of christianity, we just become spectators.  we’re all called to holiness – not to be a spectator, but to participate.  what if someone told you to go out tomorrow and create one holy moment.  you’d probably ask, “what’s a holy moment?”  and if they said, “a holy moment is a moment where you feel that you’re doing exactly what god called you to do in that moment,” would you be able to follow their instruction?  sure you would.  it’s simple, and everyone can do that – it’s replicatable.  if you can create one holy moment today, then you can create two holy moments tomorrow, and three the next day.  of course it takes god’s grace, but god is always going to give you the grace you need to create holy moments.  if you can create just one holy moment, that proves that holiness is possible for you.

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powerful stuff, isn’t it?  and that’s just a small portion of what i got out of those daily videos.  you can watch them all here.  they really were so motivational for my faith, and although matthew kelly speaks from a catholic perspective, i think that there’s something in his videos that everyone can learn about faith and christianity in general and can relate to in some way or another, whether it be a cradle catholic, a non-catholic christian, a non-christian who knows very little about christianity, whomever.

anyway, today marks a very important [and somber] day on the christian/catholic calendar because it is the day that jesus died on the cross to forgive us of all our sins.  it was the greatest and most difficult thing anyone could do, but it was the reason that jesus was put on this earth by his father.  and sunday is easter!  the day jesus rose from the dead, giving us new life and eternal salvation in heaven!  god is so good.  xoxo