Pausing to Review the Graces We Have Received

A Week of Review: “He Calls Me”

As we journey in the retreat, we pause to stay awhile with the graces being offered us. Before moving ahead to hear and see Jesus and fall more deeply in love with Jesus in his life and ministry, I pause to savor what has just happened. I walk around with a deep sense of peace this week.

“He calls me.” Throughout the week, I let myself experience these words more and more deeply. “He wants me. He needs me. He wants me to be with him. He invites me into his own experience of being called, of being servant. And I’m feeling that I want it very much. I want to be with him so much. There is something here that is different, that feels wonderful, that gives me new energy, a new freedom.”

We remember that in this review we will not be going to take on new material. It involves pausing to let myself catch up with what has been happening in me, with what I have been given, with what I have been excited by, with what I have been saying “yes” to. It is a simple week, with the same patterns of previous weeks. I’ll continue to pause when I wake and give thanks at the end of the day. I’ll still use the in-between times, the background times of my day, to refocus and be attentive to what is going on. This week, however, it becomes simpler and more peaceful. I may just pause from time to time and take a deep breath and smile as I remember some aspect of the previous weeks as it relates to what is going on in my life today. I may face something difficult, experience with more conscious awareness some part of my life’s commitment, or just notice that this moment is one that is extremely ordinary and routine. If I pause and slowly breathe the word yes, the graces of these past weeks become renewed and deepened.

Our desire continues in the same way. In our pausing this week, we will experience how we can grow in our desire. As I appreciate the depth of the invitation offered me, the more intensely I want to move forward and let Jesus show me the rest of his life. My desire to be with him and to be like him grows the more I am attracted to him who has loved me so much.