Chris Williams, SJ

What is discipleship? What is mere discipleship? The opening line of my newest poem, “Mere Discipleship,” says that “mere discipleship sheds easy excuses, burns hot and bright,” and that line is just the beginning of unpacking a process of following Christ. Are you a disciple? Are you a mere disciple? How do you know? Pray with me in today’s reflection and discover how I uncover that I am a mere disciple.

“I love you” It just was the most believable utterance of that phrase I’ve ever heard, while sitting in an utterly unremarkable conference room transformed with incense and song into a place open to worship; somehow breaking through the stubborn habits of conventional self-assurance I felt forced to carry. For some, a vocation is automatic, an easy skin to fit into. For others, God’s call is great, the response is real, and yet it is something one must learn to love. Take a moment to read and pray with a reflection about my vocation, and maybe it will illuminate something about yours.

There are times when I don’t want to accept my present circumstances, so I enter another world with more novelty and excitement. Yet when I turn back to reality, that world evaporates and I am left feeling more alone and discouraged than before. A recent chance meeting with someone broke through this fog of drudgery to reignite the roots of life within me, reminding me to keep my faith in what God places before me each day, no matter how small or mundane.

When I take a more honest look at life, with its’ beauty, and also its’ darkness and suffering, I’m drawn to see the meaning of seeking something that transcends worldly pleasures or pursuits, even the willingness to sacrifice those things. And I want to affirm this desire to “transcend” is not an escape from reality, nor is it inhuman. It is rather a call to become even more fully and authentically human concretely in the world. Chris Williams, SJ, invites us to see this transcendence in his newest poem perfect for prayer and reflection.

Chris Williams, SJ, shares with us a poem for your prayers. In his poem he writes, “I will do anything to have your eyes / Lock in on mine, widen slightly, / And glisten in impulsive, destined wonder…” We invite you take a moment to read, pray, and reflect on his words.

A poem from Chris Williams, S.J. opens us up to understanding a little more deeply what it is to love God and to receive God’s love in return. Williams says, “I think a parent knows best / What it means to love someone purely, / Not for what they get from them.”

“And when you are before God, utterly defenseless, then you will see the love of God…”

A poem about the beauty that comes from being broken and the gift of others loving you into existence.

You know it — those moments that rip open life to reveal depths which transcend whatever you thought you knew, or could do, or could receive.

Whoever wishes to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.