Strange as it might seem, all of us must learn how to be beggars if we are going to grow up to be faithful followers of Jesus. We won't be begging for spare change, but we will be begging for what we really need. We will be asking, sometimes desperately, for what we need to live as a fully human person.

Something keeps us from admitting that we are not complete in ourselves; something holds us back from facing the fact that we are not God -- we have needs which only God and others can help us fulfil. Many times people go through their whole lives and never ask for what they need from God or from others. We're afraid. We're proud. We don't want to seem weak to others. We don't even want to seem weak before God. We hide our fears and insecurities from our closest friends.

The plain and simple truth is: we are not God. None of us is self-sufficient. If we act or live as if we were whole and complete in ourselves, never needing help from God or others, then we are living in a world of our own making -- a world of fantasy.

There's a great freedom that comes when we can finally admit the truth of our lives to someone else -- when we can say clearly that we are in great need. At that point, new possibilities open up in our lives. At the very moment when we admit our deepest weakness and needs -- at that moment we open ourselves to receive the strength that comes from God and from those whom God sends to us. May we all grow up to be beggars before God and before one another.

  Peace, Fr. John