Reflection
This is the day the LORD has made;
-Psalm 118:24
let us be glad and rejoice in it.
If you know me, you know that I have an unquenchable thirst for community. I am eighty years old, and I can truly say that I have spent my life looking for and doing everything I can to foster community wherever I go or with whomever I am with, an experience I was blessed with early in my life.
One of my favorite folk songs is “Today,” written by Randy Sparks in 1964. I love the lines: “I can’t be contented with yesterday’s glories; I can’t live on promises winter to spring; A million tomorrows may all pass away ere I forget all the joy that is mine, today!”
When I think of that song, Today, I remember sitting at lunch in 1963 at the Passionist Novitiate in St. Paul, Kansas. The reader (we didn’t converse at meals but often listened to a book or article read by one of the novices for the community) was reading an article from the Sign Magazine by Andrew Greeley titled “Grace, the Sacrament of the Present Moment.” I was a Novice, 18 years old, and I had been meeting with Fr. Fred, our Novice Master, sharing how the circumstances at my home in Chicago were tugging at my heart, telling me I belonged there. That didn’t make any sense to either of us. I was doing well; I loved the routine of the monastery, and everything seemed to fit me well, suggesting that I was right where I should be. But still, there was this nagging that I shared with Fred.
Back to Andrew Greeley’s Article. He wrote (not an exact quote, but only what I remember some sixty years later), if you are 18 years old, and thinking that life will begin when you graduate, or when you get this job, or when you meet this person, forget it. You must be fully alive and choose life today. I went to Fred after lunch, and without me saying a word, Fred said, “I will get you a train ticket home. I was watching you during lunch.”
That decision on both of our parts led me to leave the great loving community where I felt totally loved and cared for, and venture out into a life, I had no idea where it would go. My high school and novitiate experience with the Passionists left me with a longing for community, which to this day is my daily bread. I wonder how I can bring the great experience I had of being loved and cared for, to everyone I meet. My journey and quest continue to this day.
God, help me respond to the grace you present to me this day. Help me not be afraid, even if it means totally changing my way to follow Your Spirit of love.
