Into the Wilderness

 AMDG

“I will go after my lovers,” she said, “who will give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.”

She did not know that it was I who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished upon her silver and gold that they used for Baal.

Therefore, I will now allure her, and lead her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. From there I will give her her vineyards, and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she shall respond as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.

On that day, says the LORD, you shall call me, “My husband,” and no longer will you call me “My Baal (my master).”

-Hosea 2:5, 8, 14, 16

 I, a new man, to my siblings in Christ: may the abundant peace of God fill your hearts. I am home from my long retreat, as are (I hope) the 17 others who journeyed with me. Although I cannot and have no desire to explain everything that God revealed to me or all the graces with which God showered me, I do want to share some of it.

Throughout my life, since childhood if I may apply the lens of hindsight, I have been longing for God, and God has been present to me. Perhaps the Lord made in me the heart that longs for him/her, the heart aware of its incompleteness without its Creator. I feel it in the way my heart responds to God’s word and to creation. There is a strong, personal call. An invitation. I know who God is to me and who I am to God: Lover and Beloved.

Looking over my life early in the retreat, I recollected some of the experiences that have formed me. I saw many opportunities and challenges which created a rich “curriculum” designed personally for me by the God of the Universe. I knew without a doubt that this curriculum is preparing me for who God wants me to be better than any of the formal programs I have envied. I am grateful for this, and I am grateful in the hope that it is leading to service.

I also had ample time and opportunities to understand my unfreedoms. The first one to come up was the Jesuits. Although I had already claimed meaningful healing and freedom around the subjects of vocation and the Jesuits, God showed me that my choice to nevertheless identify the Society of Jesus as Good, to model my life determinedly off of their example, and to identify myself in some unofficial or aspirational way as a lowercase jesuit, was a rejection of the will of God working in my life and a limit to my freedom to see and pursue what God has in store for me.

This past June, on a graced day of prayer, God asked, “will you come on a different path with me?” I said in reply, “I will. Here I am.” Now, as a new man, I embrace the New Path again. In doing so I feel open, available.

One grace from my long retreat is the sense of my God taking me by the hand and leading me into the wilderness, to be his/her Beloved and to do a new thing with him/her. My heart answers with an unequivocal, joyful “yes.”

In gratitude and peace,

Your Other Brother

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