Various thoughts and events seem to spiral taking us in a direction where we feel we are being drawn deeper into God despite the pain of rejection by others.
Could it be so much of a challenge to self-constructed worlds of a false order and discipline to actually allow God through someone to change that order? Do we pray often " Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it in Heaven, " But in reality mean " Leave things as they are God because we are not prepared to consider changing a thing ?" When we proclaim the love of God for all men and women do we actually mean " As long as that person believes what I believe, prays what I pray, and will live as I want them to, and I am free to do whatever I want? " Is the Christ in our midst today no more than a thought, or intellectual study, rather than a living reality who communicates to us, and God forbid actually asks us to look at areas and issues, and maybe even worse be like that clay in the potter's hands willing to be molded, and remolded? When we look at the Brother and Sister in front of us do we see Christ in them or discern what is wrong, bad, and ugly in them? Do we fail to understand the lesson of Saint Francis that the real leper we have to embrace is not the person in front of us who is lovely and beautiful to God, but what remains unresolved within us?
Richard Smith Hermitage of Saint Michaell and All Angels.