Today's gospel was about letting the weeds grow with the wheat till the harvest. It set me to thinking about our rush to have answers in the discernment process. Can we be patient enough to relax and believe that God will care for the outcome if we are faithful to the process?

Johannes Baptist Metz in a little book, Poverty of Spirit, talks about the innate poverty of being human. We are never complete. Much as we long to know definitively who we are and where we are going, it is the nature of being human that we are never finished becoming or arriving. I think that has implications for discernment. There is an urge in us to "be there" to be finished and know with certainty the path for the journey. We can know that the end is union with God, but the path is determined day by day in the choices we make. We are not finished and we cannot have the kind of certitude we want. That is what it is to be human. And since Jesus accepted being human, it is a good sign that we should too.

Take a few minutes to breath. That is what I am telling myself today. Life seems rushed.

Discernment--it takes breathing time. Relax into choices. Relax into God's love. Rest there and you will find direction.

Good morning all. It is a beautiful day, though we do need rain. Today is a wonderful feast day for the Sisters of Divine Providence in the U.S. Our provincial house here in Melbourne, Kentucky is St. Anne Convent. Our founder, Jean Martin Moye, had a number of devotions that were dear to him and that he passed on to us. Probably the most prominent was a devotion to the passion of our Lord. Among the Saints he revered were St. Joseph, St. Anne and Mary.

We do celebrate feastdays well. There as no morning Mass today (so an opportunity to sleep in). We will have Mass at 4:30 PM and then a festive dinner together. The sisters who live in the area will all come together. I am looking forward to all of this.

Discernment Opportunities
Sometimes when we are making a major choice or trying to determine how God is calling us to live out our commitment, we can get into a rut in our own minds--going round and round and getting nowhere except back to the place where we started. Sometimes, saying out loud what is going on in our heads and hearts helps us more a step forward. Even better is saying these things aloud to someone else. Feedback helps. What someone else hears us saying can be very insightful.So...If you are going round and round about how God is calling you--to married life, single life or life as a vowed religious, here is a great opportunity.An Evening of Discernment at St. Anne Convent/Moye Spiritual Life Center on September 6, 2007. We will begin at 7 PM and end at 11 PM. Why not join us. Contact Sr. Fidelis Tracy CDP at vocation@cdpkentucky.org

What are your thoughts today about God's will? I like to think about it as very different from our human will which we often associate with willfullness. God's will is huge. It allows for us to make any choice and then in that space where the choice lands us, opens up for us a million more ways for us to find God, see God, love God and come to union with God.

St. Catherine described it as an abyss of love enfolding us in nothing but mercy.

Search for God's will. Do. But remember it is always opening up rather than closing the way for us and is surrounds us with love.

Today is beautiful. The readings for Mass gave pause for thought. The mother of James and John had something she wanted for them and was bold enough to speak up for it. Jesus answers them instead of her so I suppose they put her up to it. Usually when I meditate on that reading I focus on how difficult it must have been for Jesus. He had just told them about how he would suffer and they do not commiserate in anyway but go right on thinking of themselves.

Today, though, I prayed about being bold enough to express my desires to Jesus and to God. There are things I do want and sometimes find it difficult to admit those wants. So this morning I asked God for a lot of things--small and large with confidence that God will give me whatever I need and not the things that would not be helpful for my union with God.

I also spent a little time with the first reading--about being earthen vessels. It is truly okay to be human and have human weaknesses. As the reading so eloquently said, that weakness of ours makes it all the more clear that any glory belongs to God. Jesus shared our humanness so would we reject it by insisting on being infinite and flawless?

For today, I'm going to be okay with my failings and ask for what I need.