Courage is a gift that I know well, not because I have the capacity to be courageous, but it is almost always on my lips in prayer.
Two years ago, I served for an online Alpha at All Saints Parish. Since the entire program was online, our “weekend away” became a half-day retreat on Zoom. As we prepared for this event, we discussed details and watched an Alpha workshop to give us a better understanding of what’s to come.
Everything was going well until one of the videos ended with, “you will now have the opportunity to practice praying over each other right now!”
My heart stopped.
Immediately, I started praying for a power outage or for my computer to spontaneously combust. There had to be a way for me to get out of this.
Unfortunately, neither of those events happened but instead, I was moved into a breakout room with another member of the team. I began rapidly praying my familiar prayer for an infusion of courage from the Holy Spirit.
I, then, offered the scripted: “How can I pray for you?”, feigning confidence as if my mind wasn’t still trying to find a way out of this situation.
I made the sign of the Cross, took a few seconds, saw my anxiety start to fade, and began to pray. I started praying over my teammate with words that were very clearly not my own. I experienced a clarity of mind and a warmth as I spoke, which I could only recognize as the action of the Holy Spirit within me.
I am still scared of praying over people. Even getting the courage to simply ask seems like an impossible task sometimes.
What I can do is never forget about calling on the Holy Spirit when the opportunity arises.
"For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing." - Romans 7:18-19
Self-control has several scarier sounding relatives: discipline, self-denial, asceticism, don't-binge watch-an-entire-Netflix-series-in-an-evening, and many others.
However, my reflection will be centered around the idea of equanimity. Simply defined, it is a mental composure; a calmness, particularly in the midst of a difficult situation.
I mentioned binge watching Netflix for a good reason. When I come home after a tough day, there are times where I will throw something on the TV and let it run until I fall asleep. Moments like this reveal that I have not been walking with the Lord for an extended period of time and rather than seek His counsel, I try to pacify the negative feeling with fleeting entertainment.
Even when a troubled day falls when I am disciplined in prayer and docile to the Holy Spirit, I can’t say that the desire to turn to entertainment vanished completely.
Instead, there was a certain peace - an equanimity - that grew.
The best way I can describe this feeling is resting under the watchful gaze of God, knowing that He will guide me away from temptation. While my emotional state may scream “let’s find a quick fix”, the fruit of Self-Control helps me resist temptation and choose a better way.
John Kerssens is a parishioner at All Saints Parish in Coquitlam.
