Friday, September 23, 2011

Sacred Heart

"Change is God's way of teaching us new things..."
As I begin my new work at Sacred Heart, so many 'little things' have pointed me afresh to the heart of God ... most obviously (God knows with me I am slow to catch subtlety) that little Ignatian group we started and living the 19th annotation in common, to VBS when I was Mon Frere Chef Pierre and spontaneously used Sacre Coeur to affirm the love of Jesus in the children, to prayers laid upon the outstretched arms of a hollowed out Christ carved from driftwood that has always been to me the Sacred Heart, to the realization as I see photos of how often I touch by habit my own heart or the heart of the one I am embracing...

To leave the place that has become my family these 19 years brought with it a grief ripe with gratitude that I would be so knit into this community that it was hard to say goodbye.  St. Therese taught me in her people to "stop and smell the roses", to rely on the constancy of God's grace, and be thankful.

Where I felt the uprooting tug and tear in leaving where the Lord had long left me to grow strong, I now can sense the eagerness of my own roots sinking into the rich soil of this new planting by God's hand, this garden of grace.  I have been surprised by peace, by a deeper openness to trust in the heart of God, confident in God's abiding presence.  As my phone chimes it's prompt for the examen (1:15pm, works better after lunch for me, before I dig into the afternoon tasks) I find myself only grateful; that God is with me, and in this moment, that I know it. 

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