I was 32 years old when I first entered the Society of Jesus in 1997 and as part of the novice experience we contemplated the spiritual exercises in a 30-day silent retreat. In 2023, during a stage of Jesuit formation called tertianship, I again was spiritually directed through the 30-day retreat. Today, the day before my birth on September 8th (the birth of Mary, Mother of God by the way), I am 61. And spiritually, to see the novice I was back in 1997, to the Jesuit priest I am now in 2025, of how often, I recall in prayer and reflection how misguided I was in trying to find true love and healing in my life. This has and is always a humbling part of my spiritual growth. As a boy and young man, I was so thirsty to love and to be loved.
It was and still is a very human story, a story I believe we all share, this journey to love and to be loved.
We are all on this same journey to be loved divinely and perfectly and to love ourselves and others with a love divine. Yet, we still thirst. We still ache. We still yearn. We still await. Sometimes there is dysfunction. Sometimes even those closest to us can hurt us.
Our first reading from Wisdom is King Solomon’s prayer for wisdom. Solomon is trying to persuade his audience, to persuade us, to acknowledge that no human being can really know God’s counsel or what the Lord God intends for us. The understanding of us mere mortals is extremely feeble and subject to our physical, mental, and spiritual stumbling blocks. And so, we pray for divine wisdom and love.
So, if we are to use this God-given wisdom coming from divine love, how are we to make sense of this very, very difficult passage from St. Luke for this day. Imagine what it means for Jesus to ask of his disciples, asks of us as disciples too, for us to understand what he means to turn one’s back on father and mother, on wife and children, on brothers and sisters, on one’s very self, in order to be Jesus’ disciple? It goes against both the grain of nature and the love of self and the love of others which our Lord commends elsewhere. It seems to be an extreme exaggeration on our Lord’s part in order to shock us into recognition of the cost of discipleship.
Why, because to be wise and to love with a love divine is no easy thing. In other words, nothing should be permitted to get in the way of our awareness of and response to God. And this “nothing” sometimes includes “no one”! There is something greater going on in this Christian life, than sometimes even family, then sometimes even Jesuit brothers, then even the injustices alive in this world, then even our own fears where we need to ‘let go, and let God!. And this something greater, this great thing, is this love of God in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit of Love they give and give constantly and forever. Divine love is indeed a love that will never ever die, a love that overcomes all darkness, a love that fulfills.
As Christian’s we are called to give up everything so that God’s love in this world, a world that quite often does not love with the love of God, can take ever-greater hold! But as we pray we find that is precisely what God is doing and has done for us! We are the fortunate recipients of God’s great gift of love and wisdom. We no longer are doomed to walk this oh so human, yet sacred life, always searching somehow outside of ourselves for love. What does Dorothy Gayle say at the end of the movie The Wizard of OZ? If I ever go searching for my heart’s content, somehow out there, I never really had it in the first place. There is no place like home. There is no place like home. Well, for us, Jesus is home. We pray for divine wisdom and love.
We cannot be Jesus’ disciples if we show no interest in Jesus, and we cannot show interest in Jesus without spending time with Jesus in prayer. In spending time with Jesus, becoming his disciple truly, we will bring to him, again in prayer, the names of those who are inscribed on our hearts --- father, mother, wife, children, (well for me, a vowed and chaste religious, wife and children not so much) and brothers, sisters, and we will, each one of us, do this with spirit-given wisdom and a love, a love, a love O so sweet and divine. Come, Jesus calls to us, your time on this planet is short, rest only in my love, and love! LOVE!
Rev. Kent Beausoleil, SJ
Rev. Beausoleil, SJ, PhD, has lived in the Creighton Jesuit Community since 2020. Currently he ministers as the Market Vice President for Mission Integration (NE/IA) for CommonSpirit/CHI Health while continuing his ministry as a mission leader at five local area hospitals: Immanuel Medical Center, and Lasting Hope in Omaha, and Mercy Corning, Mercy Council Bluffs, and Missouri Valley in Iowa. Joining the Jesuits in 1997 and ordained in 2007 his Jesuit formation focused on three types of ministries: healthcare, spiritual direction and pastoral counseling, and higher education focusing on young adult spiritual development.
Rev. Kent A. Beausoleil, SJ has a PhD in Student Affairs from Miami University in Oxford, OH. He also possesses master’s degrees in public administration, philosophy, divinity and education. He loves to walk and be out in nature, cross-stitch and bake.
The ability to reflect on other contributors’ reflections as well as being able to provide a personal monthly spiritual reflection has become an important and integral part of my daily prayer.
