It is a busy time of the year, isn’t it? Our students have gone back to school. We are winding down the summer here in Mississippi and getting ready for all of our fall activities. Our ALPHA evangelization programs and faith formation programs are getting ready to start up again. I am back from my retreat in Spain and settling down in my life of working in the chancery office of our Diocese.
In the midst of our busy lives, in our readings this weekend, we hear about our necessity of not only placing our trust in our faith, but also of the importance of being vigilant and prepared. There is a quote from the comedian Woody Allen that I have always loved: “80% of life is just showing up.” Yes, showing up is a big part of life, isn’t it? We have to show up. We have to engage. Nothing can happen if we don’t show up.
A lot of people have assumed that I was in Spain hiking the Camino trail again, but this time I was there for the spiritual exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola. Ignatius wrote these spiritual exercise to describe the discernment and prayer process he went through when he had his profound conversion experience and was trying to decide what he would do with his life. This was in the early part of the 16th century after Ignatius had spent his young adult years as a knight. During the spiritual exercises, I met one-on-one with a spiritual director each morning. He would assign me 4 to 5 hours of directed prayer exercises for the day. At the end of the day, I would take a walk in one of the neighboring villages and reflect upon how God was speaking to me during my prayer time. You can imagine, spending such a concentrated time in prayer each day was a very intense experience. And talking with my spiritual director on the retreat each morning was like bearing my soul to him each day, sometimes a painful and uncomfortable process. But, it was such a wonderful experience to be able to devote myself to prayer each day of the retreat. I look back on the 5 weeks I spent in Spain in the spiritual exercises with immense gratitude and thankfulness.
Our reading from the letter to the Hebrews today tells us that “faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.” Wherever the Lord is calling us on our journey, it often takes a great leap of hope and trust to follow the Lord. But, that does not mean that we just throw caution to the wind. Prayer, discernment, study, and discipline are a part of being vigilant and being prepared. We do not place our hope and trust in a void of nothingness. We place our hope and trust in the faith that we have discerned and followed. Just as the early Christians could look back on the history of the people of Israel to see how God was working in their lives and the lives of their ancestors, we can see how God has been at work in our lives in the past and in the present. That brings us hope and trust for the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment