If I’ve learned anything as a friar, it is that being a Christian means leaving behind everything and being totally fine with accepting whatever God gives me—big or small, happy or painful.

Clinging to something that does not bring us life means clinging to our sure death.

Who among us doesn’t know suffering? We’ve all experienced these moments of pain, either physical, mental, or spiritual. In this video, Casey Cole, OFM, proposes that certain kinds of suffering can be beneficial and allows for immense growth.

I believe we are naturally restless people. For whatever reason, we feel our lives are somehow incomplete as we experience them and we long to fill in what is missing. We anxiously grasp at the world, hoping that more stuff, more wealth, more power, and more acclaim will satisfy us. Despite the futility of the world, something tells us it will bring us ultimate rest, but it never does. The more we seek, the more we realize how unsatisfied we are.