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 A Thought On Sunday
"THE SLOW WORK OF GOD"
From the desk of, Fr. Ignatius Waters c.p.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
There is much in the Advent readings about God's patience with our slow progress. And even more about our own impatience as we wait for the coming of the Lord. How many Advents have we lived through and what have we to show for it? I came across Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's words about 'the slow work of God' when I was a student. And I really needed to hear them! When we entered Religious Life, we were told we were entering 'a state of perfection'. A state of perfection! Imagine! And our call was to be perfect as 'our Heavenly Father is perfect'. At the start, this didn't daunt me. I would get there – sometime! It might take me a few years but I would make it! I would make a job of it!
And it did take me a few years to realise that I was never going to make it, even if I had nine lives. God's work in us is a very slow work. We simply lay the foundations here. We have all eternity to build on them! We need Advent after Advent to be reminded of that. And we need to read slowly, over and over again, these words of De Chardin. Reflect on them; bring them to your prayer. These words encouraged me in my youth; in my old age, they encourage me still:
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
Yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability, and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.
Let them shape themselves without undue haste.
Do not try to force them on, as though you could be today what time-- that is to say, grace --and circumstances acting on your own good will, will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new Spirit gradually forming in you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
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