Here are two for the price of one: days 3 and 4 in one post...
I think I was about nineteen when Romans 8 made its indelible impression on me. I can't remember how or where, just that it remained powerfully with me. Its message is abundantly clear, and abundantly reassuring: nothing, neither death nor life, no angelic or earthly power, no height or depth, nothing that exists, nothing still to come... no hardship or persecution, trial, distress or peril... can ever separate us from the love of God, made known to us in Christ.
Time and again in my journey into the Society this message was reinforced: God's love is steadfast, everlasting, all-embracing and all-forgiving. I entered knowing, with certainty, that I was utterly, abundantly loved by God - and nothing, including anything I might do! - could ever change that. And time and again since becoming an RSCJ I have known that I am called to enter into the depths of that love - in the Heart of Jesus - and proclaim it with my life.
And I was twenty-seven when I first encountered Isaiah 55, and heard it as a powerful, heartfelt plea from God, and a generous offer, combined in one.
Oh come to the water all you who thirst; though you have no money, come!... Why spend your money... on what fails to satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and you will have good things to eat and rich food to enjoy. Pay attention, come to me; listen, and your soul will live.
It was part of the overwhelming, primordial call to God which contained within it a call to religious life; a call whose depths I still continue to discover and explore anew.
The journey never ends, it simply continues.
Time and again in my journey into the Society this message was reinforced: God's love is steadfast, everlasting, all-embracing and all-forgiving. I entered knowing, with certainty, that I was utterly, abundantly loved by God - and nothing, including anything I might do! - could ever change that. And time and again since becoming an RSCJ I have known that I am called to enter into the depths of that love - in the Heart of Jesus - and proclaim it with my life.
Oh come to the water all you who thirst; though you have no money, come!... Why spend your money... on what fails to satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and you will have good things to eat and rich food to enjoy. Pay attention, come to me; listen, and your soul will live.
It was part of the overwhelming, primordial call to God which contained within it a call to religious life; a call whose depths I still continue to discover and explore anew.
The journey never ends, it simply continues.
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