Imitation of Christ

St. Augustine said: "we must imitate Christ if we truly love him." This statement seems to be so obvious, but at the same time it is the biggest challenge in our Christian life. What does it mean to imitate Christ?

For so many years we've heard that Jesus Christ loves us and we just have to pray to him and ask for whatever we want. It was almost presented like Jesus Christ is waiting to please us with anything we need. I remember a priest ordained with me who shared with me a story about a mother asking him to say Mass in "some intention". He asked her what is this "some intention". She answered: that my daughter will have a successful abortion. Of course he not only didn't celebrate Mass in this intention but he also had to teach this poor mother what a horrible thing her daughter is going to do and she should instead pray to stop her from doing so. I do not remember exactly how this entire situation ended but it shows that there is a lot of misunderstanding about Christ.

We must imitate Jesus Christ in our life. This is a call that comes to each one of us. It is not about wearing long hair or performing miracles. Rather it is about going through life in such a way that other people look at us and say: they love Jesus Christ. Our life has to reflect the truth of the Gospel and the light of our prayer life. Without those two elements we cannot say that we know and follow Christ.

In the last few decades for some reason we forgot about imitating Christ. I have seen so many Church and parish groups that completely forgot about Jesus and they became social clubs active under the Church name. I have seen groups that would not come for an adoration of the Blessed Sacrament because they have more important Church work to be done. Right now those groups are gone or just about to be gone. Sadly all of them made the same mistake: they didn't imitate Christ, rather they pleased themselves.

The only way to love God is to imitate his Son in our lives. This imitation is not always perfect but it leads us to perfection. So let us show this world that Christ lives in us.