The ‘Slow Work of God’
The Good News is that the spirit dwells within each one of us and we are all pilgrims on a journey to God. The spirit is continually at work in our lives and every experience is an opportunity for growth and for a deepening of life within us. However, the problem can be that sometimes we don’t recognise that ‘God comes to us disguised as our life’ (Richard Rohr) and we can’t believe that our experience could be the place of divine encounter, having meaning. Often, too, we face enormously challenging situations of illness, suffering and loss, that seem initially too awful and distressing to have any other significance. Finding God in the messy bits and pieces of our lives is enormously challenging. Many prefer to escape in sanitised, blissful and ‘holy’ experiences far removed from the daily hubris that surrounds us. The challenge remains to believe that God is with us and while not causing life’s chaos and unpredictability, works powerfully to shape and mould us through these experiences.
Excerpted from Discover God Daily by Brendan McManus SJ and Jim Deeds (p.6)
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Dealing with Mistakes
There are lots of examples of where Jesus, when faced with imperfections of those around him, showed mercy and compassion and willed that the person learned from their mistakes and grew into a better way of being. In other and more modern words, he cut them a break and looked kindly on them.
No day is perfect. No person is perfect. Mistakes and failures are part of the journey. We grow and learn much more in the face of being cut a break and looked on kindly than judgement and being shut out.
Excerpted from Emerging from the Mess by Brendan McManus SJ and Jim Deeds (pp.30-31)
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What You Really Want or Desire
We have lots of wants; we always want things that we think will make us happy, but these are often not our deepest desires. My deepest desires are not about wants. Wants often come from ‘the surface’ and can be superficial. They usually involve ‘things’. The more important question is about our deepest desires, our dreams, what will bring us true happiness. They come from a place way below the surface or the superficial things. They come from a place we sometimes don’t even really understand.
Ignatius said that we can find God in our deepest desires. That’s a remarkable statement if we carry it through to practice. Spending time dreaming about our deepest desires might just bring us into a sacred space.
Excerpted from Emerging from the Mess by Brendan McManus SJ and Jim Deeds (p.44)
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God with Us
We should keep an eye and an ear open in the liturgy and in our reading of the Bible to pick up the many references to God being ‘with’ us and his other chosen servants, so that we can appreciate their full theological significance. This should encourage us to appreciate the depth and all the implications of the apparently simple universal greeting with which we Christians are so familiar that it glides off our minds regularly without our appreciating it: “The Lord be with you.’ Hearing this from the priest at Mass should stop us regularly in our tracks: it is not just a blessing, it is always also a challenge. As we see throughout the Bible, it implies a previous particular commission that we have personally received from God. It should remind us that God promises to be always ‘with us’, as the risen Jesus promised his disciples (Matthew 28:20), regardless of – even because of – our inadequacies, so that God can bring about through us what he is asking of us at this moment in our lives. That’s the point.
Excerpted from Sacred Space: The Companion by The Irish Jesuits (p.68)
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Keeping the Faith
Religion has earned a deservedly bad press in recent years, but I worry that in our increasingly secular society we are rejecting far too easily some of the visions and best standards of the Christian faith, which has provided the bedrock of our civilisation for over 2,000 years.
I think it is timely to remind people that a deep religious faith can dramatically change lives for the better, and that it can also sustain individuals and families in times of great suffering and distress. It is equally important to remind ourselves that the misuse and debasement of religion can itself cause immense pain.
I hope that in retelling part of my own story, with fresh insights gained from a long experience of living and working through the upheavals here and elsewhere, I can help other people to understand more about the pressures and realities of a divided society, through the eyes of a young boy who became a journalist and reported on decades of one of the most frightening conflicts in recent Anglo-Irish history.
Excerpted from Keeping the Faith by Alf McCreary (pp12-13)
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Going to the Dark, Empty Places
We all have experience of darkness in life at times. The darkness comes in those places where our shadows trip us up. For some, those shadows are shadows of anger or unforgiveness or ill-health. For others, broken relationships or financial worries might be the shadows that dwell in the dark, empty places.
It is in facing into the dark and empty place that we can see the reality that our problems, though sometimes seemingly great in size or magnitude, are never the entirety of the story. For me, slowing down and regaining the discipline of prayer and reflection, rather than bringing me to a place of terror and ruin, actually takes me to a place of healing. It’s a place of encounter with reality, of encounter with God.
Excerpted from Emerging from the Mess by Brendan McManus SJ and Jim Deeds (p.21)
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Transformed Wounds and Service
In my experience of forgiving those who have hurt me, I have learned that wounds sometimes stay with me, but in a transformed way, just like Jesus’ healed wounds. But the scares are no longer simply reminders of a past pain. Transformed and healed wounds can become a kind of opening into compassionate relationship with others, if we let them. In an essay on service, Rachel Remen says, “When we serve, we don’t serve with our strength; we serve with ourselves, and we draw from all of our experiences. Our limitations serve; our wounds serve; even our darkness can serve. My pain is the source of my compassion; my woundedness is the key to my empathy.” Jesus’ wounds do more than give us faith in the Resurrection. We can model Jesus and his willingness to allow his wounds to be touched in a way that helps us develop our relationships with others and bring healing to them as well.
Excerpted from The Ignatian Guide to Forgiveness by Marina Berzins McCoy (pp. 90-91)
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The Masterpiece of Creation
The insights of science about the cosmos are coming to us thick and fast. Our generation is being showered with insights about the history and structure of creation which were hidden from our predecessors. This new knowledge helps us to understand God’s artistic work, appreciate it properly and relate lovingly to its creator. Creation is God’s self-revelation, and we have much to learn from it. Then we can participate more effectively in co-creating and restoring the divine masterpiece.
Excerpted from Sacred Space The Companion by The Irish Jesuits (p.67)
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Belonging
‘Precisely because of his life experience, St. Ignatius of Loyola saw with great clarity that every Christian is involved in a battle that defines his or her life. It is a struggle to overcome the temptation of closing in on ourselves, so that the love of the Father can make its home in us. When we make room for the Lord who rescues us from our self-sufficiency, we open up to all of creation and every creature. We become channels of the Father’s life and love. Only then do we realise what life truly is: a gift of the Father who loves us deeply and desires that we belong to him and to each other.’ Pope Francis
Excerpted from the foreword to First Belong To God by Austen Ivereigh
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Anger
Anger is a volatile and fiery emotion; it can flare quickly, easily dominate our thinking and take over our minds and actions to the point where it comes out as harsh, ugly and damaging. The problem is that incorrectly used it is hijacked by our emotions, not used for God’s plan.
If the purpose of anger is to right a wrong, then we have to be careful to use it appropriately and to direct it at the problem. Many people end up carrying enormous amounts of unexpressed anger because of real or perceived hurts, or end up letting fly at anyone or anything that gets in the way (I see red and let go so all around me feel the anger).
Praying with anger is enormously difficult because of the amount of emotions involved.
Excerpted from Deeper Into The Mess: Praying Through Tough Times by Brendan McManus SJ and Jim Deeds (p.61)
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