John Predmore, S.J., is a USA East Province Jesuit and was the pastor of Jordan's English language parish. He teaches art and directs BC High's adult spiritual formation programs. Formerly a retreat director in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Ignatian Spirituality is given through guided meditations, weekend-, 8-day, and 30-day Retreats based on The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Ignatian Spirituality serves the contemporary world as people strive to develop a friendship with God.
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Spirituality: Frederick Buechner, "Listening to Your Life"
Dying and dissolution continue to strike fear in me. Death itself does not. Ten years ago if somebody had offered me a vigorous, healthy life that would never end, I would have said yes. Today I think I would say no. I love my life as much as I ever did and will cling on to it for as long as I can, but life without death has become as unthinkable to me as day without night or waking without sleep.
This put me in mind of Ecclesiastes 3: "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die..." God created us as we are for a reason. Buechner's words certainly ring true.
ReplyDeleteYes. It is a nice acceptance of mortality when a person maturely grasps the cycle of life.
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