DO NOT LET YOUR HEARTS BE TROUBLED: A PERSONAL STORY

Upon reading this weekend’s Gospel passage, two memories began to stir in my mind. These memories are from my time with the Community of Franciscan Friars of the Renewal (CFR), from my first and third year, respectively. The first memory is from my year as a Postulant, and is of a conversation with my Postulant Director, Fr. Jeremiah Shryock, CFR. At the time of this conversation, I was discerning if I wanted to stay with the CFRs, or if I wanted to leave and move back home to Minnesota.

Grant: What if I’m not called to live this way for the rest of my life?

Fr. Jeremiah: Why are you discerning a lifelong commitment, when you’ve only been here a couple of months?

Grant: Because I don’t want to make a mistake and stay here longer than I need to. I don’t want to spend years here, only to leave, and then be years behind my friends in terms of graduating college, getting married, or having children.

Fr. Jeremiah: Are you saying that spending years pursuing the Lord and His will for your life is a mistake?

Grant: Well, no. I’m just saying that…yes, I guess that is what I was saying. I didn’t know that that was what I was saying. I guess that spending years like that doesn’t sound so bad to me.

Fr. Jeremiah: Then why are you worried about it? If the Lord calls you here, then He calls you here. If He doesn’t, He doesn’t. Don’t discern if the Lord is calling you to be here in seven years’ time. Discern if He is calling you to be here tomorrow.

The thing I most treasure from this conversation with Fr. Jeremiah, is that he so lovingly, quickly, and succinctly called me out and named the thing I was really feeling. I was feeling troubled and worrying about the future. I was worrying about what the Lord was going to do, or not do, in my life years ahead of where I was. In all of my worrying, I was absent to the reality of experiencing God in that present moment. One of Fr. Jeremiah’s keenest insights that he shared with me is that I can only experience God in the present moment. As someone bound by time, I can only experience the present moment, and so I need to be obedient to the reality. Most often, when I worry, fret, or get anxious, it’s because I’m trying to live in another moment, either past or future. Those are the moments when I let myself get troubled.

The second memory is from my third year, when I had properly discerned that the Lord was asking me to leave the CFRs. I was talking with my spiritual director, Fr. Sebastian Kajko, CFR. I was asking about what to do after leaving the friars. He told me, ‘Religious life is like walking on solid ground. When you leave, it’s like taking one more step, but there’s not the same solid ground beneath you.’ Comforting, right? He then went on to assure me that the will of God would never lead me to a place where the grace of God cannot help.

Let us not be troubled. Let us rest securely in the loving arms of the Good Shepherd. Let us be led by Him. Let us trust that He has plans for our good, not our ill.

-Grant O’Neil
Director of Lifelong Discipleship & Outreach