As the Faithful Gardener, God knows how deep to plant each seed.
Some are
intended to sprout and grow quickly. Others lay dormant for years before slowly
developing.
I have mentioned elsewhere that 2020 is making up to be a
tremendous year of change – not that I approached the New Year with a list of
resolutions.
Any external manifestations of these changes will take shape only
because they were first born and developed interiorly over time in the recesses
of my soul. That we have entered into a new calendar year really has nothing to
do with the development.
God does not bind himself to time or to the measuring
devices we have developed. His timing is not, more often than not, our timing.
I
cannot help but to think of something that Father Louis [Thomas Merton] wrote.
“Every
moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his
soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment
brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in
the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost,
because men are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot
spring up anywhere except in the good soil of freedom, spontaneity and love.”[1]
Merton’s quote makes me think of the
Parable of the Sower. [Matthew 13]
What kind of soil is my soul? Is it hard as
concrete, shallow, a briar patch? Or is it good and well cultivated so the sown
seed can grow and reproduce itself abundantly?
God is too often slow, according to our way of
thinking … when we want something and are pouring out of petitions and
supplications. Then, when God asks something of us, we are quick to tell him
that we are not ready … that we need more time before we surrender to his will.
I cannot help but to think of something that Jesus said to his disciples when
they inquired about greatness. Unless you change and become like children,
you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. [Matthew 18:3] The older translation
amplifies when it says unless you be converted.
Conversion.
Not just an
initial emotional crisis reaction to the reality of the Cross of Christ but a life of continual ongoing conversion
wherein we more and more resemble Christ. This is the Conversatio Morum
at the center and soul of all that Benedict and his Rule stand for … one of the
Solemn Vows of Benedictine monks and Solemn Promises of Oblates of Saint Benedict.
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