Today's first lectionary selection from Luke's Acts of the Apostles reads like a letter that anyone would not mind receiving from a superior or a committee trying to help resolve a problem or set a new direction. I encourage you to give this selection a slow read today.
So often we grouse about the length of time committees require for the consideration of a problem. So often we feel answers should be provided almost instantly. This attitude is strengthened by the wonderful invention: the computer. With it we know that we can travel anywhere in the world within 3 to 5 seconds. Delays of more than 2 or 3 seconds seem deadly.
But we can learn from the early Church that discernment usually requires something more than 5 seconds. I think of the wine producing process. "Instant wine" would taste just like grape juice!
So, too, with our spiritual lives and many of the important decisions we make: some reflective time is the best additive to the process. It is in those moments of quite that we can do what Jesus encouraged throughout the forty day he made to the disciples after his Resurrection: remain in me. Be a part of me just as branches remain in/on the vie. If we remain in him, we come to know how we best live the commandments, how we chose what is best for us. This is most helpful to us if we remain in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit because that relationship, that delving into who we really are enables us to participate more fully in our relationship to the Body of Christ, the Church. Living and loving in the Body of Christ enables us to produce the results the early Church discovered in its own discernment moments.
The Sisters of Notre Dame have provided the following prayer for discernment:
Walk with me, good and loving God, as I journey through life. May I take your hand and be led by your Holy Spirit. Fill me, inspire me, free me to respond generously to your call. For I believe you desire my deepest joy, and it is only in your company that my soul will be satisfied and my life will find its meaning and purpose. Amen.
