a reminder for patience

We've been spending the past few days in a continuation of a prayer/reflection experience on our Fall ministry experience and the general process of discernment of call to religious life, call to the CSJP community, and call to ministry. I suppose that is after all the whole point of Novitiate, which according to the calendar is pressing on to the end in just about 6 months. No pressure or anything .... !

The past 2 days and the 2 days we had last month have really been a wonderful experience for me, taking the time to return to the movement of God in my life that has led me to this moment, to spend some time with deepest desires of my heart, to notice where my resistance and questions are, and to invite God into the whole experience with me. Or really, since God is always present and it's often ME that's checked out, to invite myself into the experience with God.

We ended our time this afternoon with this prayer by Teillhard de Chardin which I've run across (and shared on the blog) before. It was a good reminder

Patient Trust by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We would like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet, it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability -
and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually - let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don't try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time,
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming in you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

I ended our day by sharing that I kind of feel like I have all (or most) of the pieces of the puzzle, but I'm not quite sure how it all fits together. Teillhard reminds me to accept the anxiety of feeling myself in suspense and incomplete. My job is to be faithful to the process and approach it with as much honesty and integrity as I can muster, trusting that God is in the mix and all shall be well. In fact, I have a suspicion all will be better than well.