• The Road Ahead

My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this, you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
(Thomas Merton)

• Prayer of Abandonment

Father,
I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you;
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures –
I wish no more than this, o Lord.
Into your hands I commend my soul;
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father.
(Charles de Foucauld)

• My Gift

Lord, I freely yield all my freedom to you.
Take my memory, my intellect and my entire will.
You have given ME everything.
I give it all back to you to stand under your will alone.
Your love and your grace are enough for me;
I shall ask for nothing more.
(St. Ignatius Loyola)

• The Mission of My Life

God has created me
to do him some definite service.
He has committed some work to me
which he has not committed to another.

I have my mission.
I may never know what it is in this life,
but I shall be told in the next.

I am a link in a chain,
a bond of connection between persons.
He has not created me for nothing.
I shall do good work.
I shall do his work.

He may take me away from my friends.
He may throw me among strangers.
He may make me feel desolate,
make my spirits sink,
hide my future from me –
Still He knows what He is about.
(John Henry Cardinal Newman)

• Reflection from Archbishop Oscar Romero

It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view. The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts. It is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.

Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the Kingdom lies beyond us. No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the Church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about: one person plants a seed in the soil. Another waters it.  We plant seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing it. This enables us to do something and do it very well. It may be incomplete, but is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the Master Builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.