There was once, when I was In Primary 1 or 2, that I happened to pick up a Primary 6 Mathematics textbook in a bookstore to browse. I was very quiet afterwards and deep in thought. Seeing my troubled expression, my mother asked me what the matter was, and I told her (with great gravity and distress, apparently), that I don’t think I’d be able to do well in Mathematics in Primary 6 because the questions were too difficult!
We lived in a walk-up back in those days. My mother got us to stop at the bottom of the landing of a flight of stairs and asked me to look up at the top of the staircase. “Can you leap from where you are standing now to the top of the staircase in one step?”
“No.” I thought it was a rather obvious and dumb question.
She started walking up the stairs and I followed her. When we reached the top, she asked me, “How did you get here?” In a flash I understood. “There’s no need to fret about how to reach a distant goal. Take one step at a time, and before you know it, you are there.”
I am reminded today, at the close of Lent, of this lesson. When I look at what Christ is asking of me as a disciple, and I look at where I actually am, I feel like that little girl once again. “How am I ever going to get there?!”
And Mother Church, through the beautiful liturgies of this week, is reminding me as my earthly mother did all those years ago, “One step at a time, and before you know it, you will be there… because Jesus Christ has made it possible.” And just like it was all those years ago, I am not left to make this journey alone. Mother Church is with me, as are all my sisters and brothers here on earth and in the Communion of Saints. And just like in the picture above, I’ve got my Heavenly Father holding my hands and walking with me till I get there.
What a wonderful week to be Catholic!
Journey of the Heart 