Are You Attached?

As a consumer in a culture that promotes rampant consumption today's Gospel reading can be quite challenging.  I think that this is best put in the context in today's meditation from the Magnificat in which Fr. Tadeusz Dajczer states in the opening of the passage "an obvious sign of attachments is also your sadness in situations when God takes something away from you.  It is so easy to be consumed by the desire to buy more than what I need, to eat more than my fill, to work for the extra dollar in order to have more and to be driven by a whole myriad of desires that divorce myself from the will of God.

Having had plenty of these life experiences to only find emptiness in the dark recesses of my soul, did the idea that I was actually seeking God come upon me after many years. The desire of fulfillment, power, and prestige left a void in my life time and time again. Who and what could fill that? Consumed by this obsession and earthly desires separated me from true union with my Creator. Becoming resentful when life challenges did not turnout, I was truly blinded by my attachments to certain situations and my enslavement to materialism. Little did I realize that God was indeed working to free me from these obsessions, that there was a freedom that only He in his infinite mercy could provide.  Working more to obtain the precious dollar only brought more enslavement to workaholism and culture of consumption.

What changed this?  Having been awakened to the concept that an attachment to God and a disciplined spiritual life, only then did I gradually realize that I could not serve God and mammon. There are still life struggles and the desire to have more financial fulfillment in order to provide for the family, children's college costs, retirement, and a host of other challenges. When the temptation to be consumed by these occur, I try to look to God in prayer and as Fr. Dajczer states that these moments are actually grace filled as our Lord is giving us a chance to cleanse ourselves in order to be closer to him. Yes being separated from all things earthly is difficult, but the reward outweighs the cost.  True union with my Father - an attachment forever.