Throughout this Easter season, I attended a convention of Mission Formation Officers within the Jesuit Colleges Community; I used to be on the organizing committee. As I watched the year-long work of the committee lastly come collectively, enhanced by the power and fervour of the contributors, I felt such future promise and paschal pleasure. Even now, weeks later, I’m savoring the graces. However I’m additionally working by the letdown feeling that inevitably occurs when a Spirit-filled week has come to an finish. I ponder if that is how the disciples felt after they bought that “retreat excessive” of seeing Jesus up shut on the street to Emmaus after which watched him go away them as soon as once more.
Years in the past, in my second put up on this web site, I wrote a couple of clever Jesuit priest who had been an instance for me of what deep contemplation and intimate relationship with God appeared like in apply. Whereas on the convention, surrounded by each lay and Jesuit ministers enthusiastic about persevering with the mission of each the Catholic Church and the Society of Jesus, I felt as soon as once more the presence of Johnny Edwards, SJ, in addition to the presence of a number of others who had gone earlier than me. I noticed fairly rapidly that there have been many contributors additionally calling to thoughts the knowledge and classes that each Jesuits and lay individuals steeped within the Non secular Workout routines had imparted on them. It appeared like each dialog I had concerning the mission included a mirrored image on one thing every of us had discovered from another person who had gone earlier than.
As we head into the closing days of the Easter season, I’m nonetheless attempting my finest to maintain up my dedication to lean deliberately into my friendship with God. And in an actual, tangible means, I’ve felt God leaning again by each the folks journeying with me in life and people who have gone earlier than me in loss of life. Although I can not ask a number of of my mentors for steering and recommendation, I really feel steeped of their knowledge and fortified with their assist, and that’s connecting me greater than ever to the Risen Jesus.
Generally I want that I might expertise what the Apostles skilled on Pentecost. Regardless of how fearful it sounds, I want I might really feel the violent rush of wind fill the place the place I sit and see the tongues of fireside relaxation upon my head and the heads of these round me. I want I might really feel as if the phrases that got here out of my mouth weren’t my very own however the phrases of the Spirit proclaimed in a means that enabled all to listen to the Good Information.
Then I do not forget that generally the Spirit comes by nice winds and hearth, and generally the Spirit is available in a quiet whisper that permeates hearts from the within out. The expertise of being amongst my colleagues in Ignatian training, alongside the tangible presence of these now we have cherished and misplaced alongside the way in which, was the quiet whisper all of us wanted to proceed the work in earnest.
