Each morning when I am in prayer, I ask Jesus to accompany me as I go about my day. I often visualize some key items on my agenda, whether it is a meeting I will attend or a task I must accomplish, and I ask Him to walk with me throughout each.
Today’s Gospel challenged me to consider this from a different perspective. Since it is so short, let us pause and read it together again:
Jesus journeyed from one town and village to another, preaching and proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God. Accompanying him were the Twelve and some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza. Susana and many others who provided for them out of their resources.
Notice the wording “accompanying him.” Jesus did not follow the Twelve or Mary Magdalene or those others whom he had healed. They accompanied him.
Do I ask Jesus to accompany me, or do I ask to accompany Him? A slight change in order? Initially this may seem like just a different way of saying the same thing, but perhaps this verse is a grand invitation to go deeper.
You see if I ask Jesus to accompany me, the focus is on what tasks, duties, mission I perceive are in order for the day. However, what if my prayer, my heart’s desire is instead to accompany Him, to be fully immersed in His Divine Will and follow Him in everything?
A Loving God Who Accompanies
Certainly, our Trinitarian God of Love has a history of accompanying us. In the Old Testament we read about how God accompanied the Israelites through the desert, guiding and aiding them on their journey, forgiving them when they doubted, and loving them back on course. In the New Testament we see Jesus, appearing to the disciples on the way to Emmaus and accompanying them on the road. In each of these stories and countless others in between, we see God meeting us exactly where we are and walking alongside of us. He follows alongside to catch our attention, to pick us up, to enlighten us. He follows us! That is the magnitude of His love. This is beautiful, amazing, almost incomprehensible, yet that is the kind of God we have!
But in today’s passage – now they (and we) follow Him.
Accompanying Jesus
This is the invitation – to begin to completely shed ourselves of all of our human will and to solely be in His Will. We must allow this sole desire to shape our thoughts, desires, and become the new lens through which we see the world and our mission within it.
Friends, let us lose ourselves in His Sacred Heart and in the Immaculate Heart of Mary. There we will find our true identity. There we will find everlasting joy and purpose. Let us resolve to accompany Jesus from this day forward.
This is where the deepest joy and fulfillment reside. This is the gift of accompaniment.
