St. John Henry Newman said:
“God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught”.
We are often encouraged to seize the moment, yet it is the moment that often seizes us.
We know that we are not created for ‘naught’, but what we are created for is to play some walk-on part in God’s universal drama.
We may never fully know for what we are here. All we can do is to listen to the Lord who does not bellow, but speaks in a low whisper, a still small voice, a thin silence. “And the end of all our exploring, to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time” (T.S. Elliot, Four Quartets).
What am I here for?
In a way it does not matter that the answer is not clearer. The most flourishing acts are those performed as though they were one’s last, and thus accomplished not for their own consequences, but for their own sake.
It is not so much about me, and what I get from doing what I do. It is about being right to do ‘this’ now.
Do I trust that God does turn to good everything for those who love Him?
Do I believe that God has plans for me?
Do I trust God, even though I cannot seem to see the results of my labour?
Am I present to the moments?
Do I believe that it is all about love?
Inspired by ‘Alive in God” by Timothy Radcliffe OP
