Emilie reflects on her experience of spirituality on the year so far…
September the fourth. I stand with a backpack on my shoulders and look up into the sky. A runway lies ahead. And not even a single square foot to make a step back.
It is December now. For a couple of months the road has led uphill, with every day leaving behind my past life. Stopping for a split second to take a deep breath, I felt in me the revival of the honest, pure-hearted person of good will, thirsty for the truth, now subjected to accept the painfully obvious: the plain at the bottom of the hill, thought to be a fertile field I even used to be proud of, now stretches before me like a dry, cracked and broken land, spoiled with my arrogance, my folly, my illusion.
Even though it hurts and robs me of my peace to admit and accept what I have learnt about myself since joining JVC, I face how far I am from being holy. Yet again, these discoveries about my own self provide fuel for loving my neighbour with less selfishness and spark the need for more time praying, turning spirituality – one of our four values – into the rock on which to build my daily life.
Another matter which aids in concentrating on praying and constantly raising my eyes to Heaven is the simple lifestyle. Although material things could never really make me profoundly happy, it is only now I realise how unimportant and inessential they are. At long last I, the imperfect child of a man, figured out how little I am in need of, and paradoxically how much more the endlessly loving Lord God provides in His grace. Countless manifestations of love each day that passes!
Dear Lord Jesus is not only in the Holy Sacrament or in the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass or daily prayer, but in a very special way, in every person of good will and every little deed done with a high degree of diligence and sense of responsibility, regardless of its significance or magnitude. Jesus is present in every labour done without the will to win renown or approval; in every work performed in the knowledge that we live a life with a meaning far beyond the personal; in every gesture made in the confidence that our effort has eternal topicality. Beholding all this, a sense of truth stirs deep inside my heart – the beautiful, incredibly simple truth dressed in words by Saint Francis of Assisi: “God exists and this is sufficient to know. And it is sufficient that God is God.”
God is God. So simple! So perfect!
And love is simple too; so simple we cannot understand its very nature. And we really should not! What I do understand, however, is what an indescribably immense and peaceful delight it is to bear in one’s heart the longing to know and discover , to help and devote oneself, to give without getting or even expecting anything in return. Longing to be the silent and faithful apostle of love!
One fiat to be expressed and acknowledged in our daily labour.
One year having no exact duration in the course of Eternity.
One way only – submit ourselves unto love.
Holy Joe 