my heart's delight

I met with Bishop Piché this past week. On my way there, I came upon an accident and I was stuck in a line that didn't budge for 15 minutes. I kept praying we'd get moving and that I wouldn't be late. (I never ever want to keep a bishop waiting for me.) I also prayed for the people who had been in the accident. The ambulance and tow truck were just pulling away when I got to the intersection so I didn't see any of the details. It was a good thing I'd left early! My plan had been to spend a few quiet minutes in the Cathedral before the meeting, which is why I had the leeway I did.

As it turned out, I walked into the chancery office ONE minute before the scheduled meeting. However, the bishop was 15 minutes late! He apologized and told me that he'd had to finish something that the archbishop needed from him right away. Maybe I'm being weird but it felt like a privilege to wait for a bishop to finish something for an archbishop. :-) I told him that the archbishop should ALWAYS come before me. I didn't mind waiting in the least. I had spent the time calming down from the frantic force of the ride over. And, given the frenetic pace of my life, I never mind an unexpected opportunity to be still for a few minutes.

As usual, the time spent with the bishop was a huge blessing for me. The first thing he did was ask if I wanted to say a prayer before we began. Ordinarily, he says the prayer and I have been very happy that he does. My first thought: yikes, I'm about to pray an extemporaneous prayer with a bishop. Double yikes! And yet, in that moment, I knew absolutely that our Lord was listening and that Bishop Piché was entering into the prayer with me. It was a very beautiful moment.

I began by telling him that I have found my heart's delight and, in that, I seem to have frequent tears of great joy these days. (He reached for the Kleenex and gave it to me as the tears came easily!) Saying yes to God with my entire life and knowing God loves me is truly my heart's delight!

I apprised the bishop of all that had been going on since we last met--my glorious trip to NYC in September to spend time with Mother Agnes and the Sisters of Life, meeting and becoming immediate friends with Sr. Susan Catherine Kennedy from Texas. (She wasn't Sr. Susan at that point; she made her first profession of vows on the feast of Christ the King in November.) And, I told him what I'd been learning...

This period has been a time of deep introspection. I keep hearing "Be still and know that I am God." Bishop Piché gave me something else to ponder: "Speak, Lord, your servant is listening." It was exactly what I needed to hear because my desire is to do everything according to God's will, not mine, and the only way to do that is to listen to what He has to say to me. Being able to say that verse from I Samuel 3 has, and will continue to have, wondrous consequences in my life!

I told him that the evangelical counsels (obedience, chastity and poverty) have become great gifts to me, insofar as I understand them and put them into practice at this point. I understand more about how practicing them leads to a profound unity with the Holy Trinity.

I said I had felt like I had nothing to report to him a couple months ago but soon realized that that was not true at all. We talked about how this was a latent period in my life. He corrected me when I told him I thought it was a latent period when what I really meant was it seemed like a dormant period. He said latent was actually a good word for it. He went on to explain with an analogy. He said, when one sees an 8 week old baby on an ultrasound, one doesn't ask what color eyes he or she has. We must give the baby time to grow and develop eyes and, eventually, we will know the color of his or her eyes. He said it was the same for me right now. The Lord is forming a beautiful gift in the darkness of my being. One day, light will shine on this and I will know more about it. I think his point was I cannot rush God's work within me. I must trust that the "baby" is there and it will be born in the Lord's time and I will know then the details the Lord has been forming within. I thought that was excellent and a perfect and understandable analogy for me.

I told him I loved the idea that formation will take a lifetime because that idea greatly challenges me. I'm one who is results-oriented. This is forcing me to be in the process and not be so concerned as to what will happen in the future. I see how my being concerned about the future leads me to conjecture about what will be and how it will be done...in other words, how it should play out MY way. No, no, no! This is so much better, much more exciting and very challenging for me. I must wait on the Lord. I know, deep within myself, that what the Lord has in store will be way better than what I could ever conjure up.

At the last meeting, the bishop had recommended I read Pope John Paul II's "Vita Consecrata". It is a document on religious life. I loved reading it! In it, I found encouraging words and many ideas I hadn't ever before pondered. I summed up for the bishop some of the things I'd learned from studying it.

I mentioned that I was not very adept at asceticism/self-denial yet and was thinking of putting it into practice in small ways, like giving up things I enjoyed (chocolate came readily to mind!). He shook his head and told me not to do that. He said, if I did that, I would soon be on the road to prideful thinking. "Look how great I am. I'm giving up something!" Instead, he said, be open to the Lord's opportunities. He gave me the example of being delayed by something out of our control when we are on our way to doing something that seems important. We could sit there, being irritated, or we could say yes to God. In other words, I could accept that this event at this time is what God wants, which is contrary to what I want.

No sooner had I gotten back to work at the center after the meeting when I had an opportunity to put into action what the bishop had said about self-denial. Ten minutes before we were going to close for the day, a client of mine came in with her one year old baby. She didn't have anywhere to go for the night and she needed $80 for rent so she could move into a place the next day. My first reaction was typical of me: irritation that I'd have to stay late because I was tired, hungry and I was supposed to teach 2 piano lessons on my way home in a half hour. THEN, I remembered what the bishop had said about self-denial. It was a perfect presentation of what he had taught me and an opportunity to practice it. Immediately, I thanked God for the opportunity to serve Him and started focusing on my client and her needs. Of course, all shelters were full for the night by then. I asked her if she had any family with whom she could stay and she thought of her cousin. I asked her how she could get to her cousin's and she said she didn't know because she didn't have any money. I asked her if she would know how to take the bus to get there and she said she did. I gave her bus money and some apple and pumpkin bread slices that had been left over from the parenting class the day before because, by then, her little daughter was getting fussy. The front desk person who had chosen to stay with me found an umbrella stroller to give her. We waited with her until it was time for her to go out to the bus stop so they wouldn't have to be outside in the cold for long. These were such small offerings compared to the desperation of her situation!

I just know that God wanted to reinforce the bishop's lesson and so He gave me this marvelous opportunity. Not only was it an opportunity to say, "yes, Lord", but it gave me the sight to see before me, in a new and compassionate way, two children of God who needed help. I felt very blessed to be a part of it. And, somehow, my weariness and hunger had abated along the way...On the way home, I thanked God for the warm home in which I would be in a few minutes.

I share these things here because, in them, are many lessons all of us can learn. We are very blessed by the Wisdom of God, brought to us by this bishop who I have no doubt is God's servant.

Let us pray for our archbishops, our bishops and our priests, that they always teach us the Truth. I believe, in large measure, our souls depend on them.