Daily Reflection Friday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time

In today’s first reading, St. Paul asks the Philippians to imitate him, which might sound familiar from St. Paul’s other letters (1 and 2 Thessalonians, 2 Timothy, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, to name a few). We might remember that St. Paul asks his followers to imitate him because, in doing so, they imitate Christ, who is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). In other words, imitating Jesus brings us salvation with our Heavenly Father.

When I first heard St. Paul use this language—during my first year of college—I wondered what it had to do with me. In fact, I didn’t understand what Jesus’s life and death had to do with me at all. People still sinned, they were still corrupt, and not much was keeping me tied to a religion few people respected. The oddest part of all was that a group of missionaries a few years older than me was sharing the Gospel on my campus, which I soon discovered they had to delay and/or sacrifice their careers and graduate schooling to do.

It wasn’t until I formed a deeper relationship with one missionary that I realized they were doing the work of St. Paul. These college-aged missionaries said yes to making God the center of their lives and sharing the Gospel, and they were modeling what that looked like to people like me who were shaky about their faith. I watched them resist temptation, choose Mass over sleeping in, and fast during Lent. These tasks seemed hard, but I saw how much joy they brought the missionaries and I wanted to partake in that joy too.

Now I’m striving to do the work of these missionaries (through a different vocation), preaching the Gospel through my words and actions. I’m not perfect, but I try to stay aware of the impact of my words and actions, as someone might be silently observing me on how to become a follower of Christ, which may influence them to become Christ-like themselves. It doesn’t matter what our past is; what’s important is how we respond to Christ now and that we strive to be like Him every day.