We're all trying.

As this semester draws to a close, it's clear to me how reflective it has been for me. Unfortunately, I have gotten to far into my head where my thought falls away from reflection and even further from prayer to being just thought. It loses too much of its transcendence and perspective.

I'm too quick to dive into the deep ends of my head when taking in my life that my experiences can hardly even happen before I'm overanalyzing them. It's frustrating and definitely not something I like about my current self.

Some of it will be eased by unplugging from the rigors of college life, which really kicks up a notch each year with the depths of commitment one layers upon himself. Falling gently and trustingly back into the embrace of family and the home I grew up in, even if it isn't as much home as it used to be because of the ways I've grown in other settings, is renewing and nourishing.

But upon return, just like coming back from any retreat, it will require some conscious effort and the right levels of being loose and easy to walk the path towards firmer peace.

The constant amid it all that keeps me riding steady and high, even if that has been slightly lower this semester, is my faith: the underlying prevalence of prayer (that should be more in the foreground), the regularity of weekly Adoration to reground myself in/with Christ, the community of the Folk Choir, the nourishment of the mass.

It is really in the mass that I have found most solace in this kind of lull. The thing I wish most about my spirituality is for a better ability to place Christ in the people and actions that make up my life and this world. The Body of Christ enfleshed in all of us as we gather for the mass is a beautiful opportunity for this.

As I look around at the people, as my increasingly well-informed and -formed mind takes in the positives and negatives of the liturgy I participate in, I am keenly aware of my own imperfections as well as all those swirling around me. And amid the depth of mystery and magnitude of love present in it all, I can't help but settle on a simple reality: We're all trying.

We might be lapsed in so many aspects of life and lived faith and spirituality, but something brings us to the mass. And for better or worse, we participate--lacklusterly, exhaustedly, emptily, blindly, rotely, or any other seemingly negative word one could conjure. But we're there. We come. We are drawn to Christ, in whatever imperfect liturgy or congregation or practice we have.

The Church is our outlet for seeking the fullness of Christ amid the imperfections of human effort. No matter what we do in our limited capacities to muddle the fullness of God, God still offered Himself fully in the Incarnation and Cross as God-become-man, and that offer continues forever. We find it in the Eucharist, in each other, in the Church. Look around your classroom or chapel or church--we're all trying in some capacity.

No matter the imperfections we embody each time we come together for mass or even just in the encounters with each other every day: whether consciously or unconsciously, we offer our broken selves up for renewal in the Eucharist, and Christ comes, without our meriting it, and offers to make us whole again.

We might not know exactly what we are doing; we might know exactly what we are doing. But somehow, in living and practicing our faith, we are trying. And God loves me. God loves us.