Aim High

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has sent me to bring good tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to the captives, release to the prisoners, and to announce a year of favor to the Lord” (Luke 4:18).

Having said these things, quoting from the Book of Isaiah (Isa. 61:1-2) in the local synagogue in His own hometown, Our Lord “rolls up the scroll, hands it back to the assistant, and sits down” (Luke 4:19). Sitting down was the traditional sign that some important teaching was about to come.

All the townspeople that were there were waiting with bated breath. Suddenly, Our Lord startled them by saying, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21).

The word which startled them was the word “today” because they'd been trained to look to the future. Salvation was something coming in the future.

But Our Lord talks about “today.” He is here today. He doesn't make a long-range forecast. He doesn't promise that things will be different in the future.

Rather, He claims the power to transform the present, to transform today. There aren't any good times coming. They are here now.

He declares that “the kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17:21). Something like 80 percent of Our Lord's recorded sayings emphasize that reality, that here and now, this day, God has broken into your life, and He can break into your life.

Here and now is what God counts. “Today all this is fulfilled in your hearing.” Today grace abounds. Today the kingdom of God can be revealed. Today God is revealed behind every episode of your life. Not another day, but today.

As we start this retreat, we could contemplate those words of Our Lord and the importance of this moment.

We’re here listening to this retreat. It's because God has wanted us to be here, listening to this retreat. He's packaged it for you. He has a message for you. The Holy Spirit will speak to you somewhere along the line.

There are things God wants you to hear: eternal truths. Possibly, truths about your own life, truths about the future.

But all that is to happen now, today. Our Lord speaks to us about living this moment very well.

This retreat is a time of grace—a time that God wants us to think, to pray, to change, to make resolutions, and to see how we are living all the other todays.

The retreat is a time to examine our conscience, which really means to examine our life, our thoughts, our heart.

St. Pope John Paul II says there are three fundamental questions that every human person must keep asking themselves in their life: Where have I come from? Where am I going? What is my life all about? (cf. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, September 14, 1988).

He says that to a large extent, the answers to those questions will determine the happiness that we achieve in this life.

And so, it's important to live this moment well, to realize that God is speaking to us. He has a mission for us. Something to say to us.

An old woman once told a story and she said, “First, I was dying to finish secondary school and start college. Then I was dying to finish college and start working. Then I was dying for the children to grow old enough to attend school so that I could return to work. Then I was dying to retire. And now, I'm dying. I suddenly realize I had forgotten to live each day.”

God speaks to us in the present. He invites us to make radical decisions in our lives, to use our time well, use our life well, discover the mission that He has for us.

He has a mission for each one of us. He wants to place before us the greatest ideals that any human person can have in their life, which are the ideals of Christ. He wants us to think about them, ponder them, go for them.

St. Josemaría in the first point of The Way, from the chapter on Character that has changed the life of many a man, many a person, says, “Don't let your life be sterile. Be useful. Blaze a trail. Shine forth with the light of your faith and of your love.”

These are very dynamic words. He speaks them to young people. Make decisions now because time is passing. Don't waste your youth doing crazy things. It's one of the greatest times of your life. Live it for God. Do good things.

He says, “With your apostolic life, wipe out the slimy and filthy mark left by the impure sowers of hatred. Light up all the ways of the earth with the fire of Christ that you carry in your heart” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Way, Point 1).

He is speaking to every young person on the planet, saying: Do something decent with your life.

In the last few weeks, I had occasion to read about or talk to some very impressive people who did really impressive things in their lives.

There was a Good Shepherd nun in Singapore who ran an orphanage in Burma during the Second World War. I met her a couple of decades ago.

There's another Sacred Heart nun who passed away this week who had a bit of a remote influence on my life as a child in a Montessori school. She then went off to teach English to seminarians in Vietnam, educated some people in China, looked back on her life with great fulfillment.

I was talking to a 95-year-old Kiltegan priest here in Kenya recently who was full of the joys of living, because he feels so fulfilled with what he had done in his life. He spent his time well.

We have a great opportunity to use this retreat to make those radical decisions that God wants us to make.

In a book called Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis tells the story of his conversion. He says he was raised in Northern Ireland. He was taught his prayers, but not much religion.

Then he went to college. He dropped out of religion altogether. He had no use for it. He became a convinced atheist.

But despite himself, he was bothered by the grace of today, a here and now tapping on his shoulder.

He writes, “Some days a little door would open to an unspeakable burst of joy. Then it would slam again. The door would open, then it would slam. Open and slam.”

Finally, one day when he was at Oxford, at Magdalen College, something happened. The one who had been pursuing him daily finally caught up with him.

He said, “You must picture me alone in that room in Oxford feeling…the steady unrelenting approach of Him whom I earnestly desired not to meet. … It was in the Trinity Term of 1929 that I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and I knelt and prayed: perhaps that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England.”

He never became a Catholic, but he talks about his time of grace. “Today the Scripture was realized in his hearing.”

That’s why the Gospel challenged Jesus’ neighbors. It challenges us to live and to be open to the life of Christ here and now. Not tomorrow or next year. Not when the next millennium comes. But here and now.

We can try to live one day at a time as a day of acceptance of what God wants us to do today.

We can try that every day we try to suspend all our judgments of people. Accept them for what they are so that “this Scripture can be fulfilled in our hearing.”

Secondly, look for the opportunity in today—this day that presents itself, even if today is not quite what we have bargained for.

Very often in life, we may be faced with situations or places or events that we didn't quite bargain for.

A graduate student had just gotten his first job, a desk job. He felt, probably quite correctly, that this job was much beneath his talents. He complained to his friend that he didn't do pencil-pushing.

His friend was rather unsympathetic. He just patted him on the back and said to him, “You know, the world is a better place because Michelangelo didn't say, ‘I don’t do ceilings.’

“You don't go through the Bible and find Moses saying, ‘I don't do rivers’ or Noah saying, ‘I don't do arks’ or Ruth saying, ‘I don't do mothers-in-law.’

“David doesn't say, ‘I don't do giants.’ Paul didn't say, ‘I don’t do Gentiles.’ Mary Magdalene didn't say, ‘I don't do feet.’ Jesus didn't say, ‘I don't do crosses.’”

We have to try and look for the opportunity today, even in things you'd rather not do and in places you'd rather not be.

Today's grace awaits you in the particular place where you are. This is the place where God wants you to change, to look up, to see Him acting in your life.

There was a story of a lady who had her husband's new car. She wasn't a very good driver. She was driving to work one day, and another man was driving to work also, and they happened to collide.

There was a little fender-bender occasion. They both stopped the cars and got out to survey the damage. The woman was absolutely distraught. It was her fault—she admitted it.

This was a new car less than two weeks out of the showroom. She dreaded going home to her husband.

The man felt sorry for her. Nevertheless, certain things had to be done. She had to get the license number, the registration papers, and so on.

She went to her car, and she reached the glove compartment to get the documents. Among the first papers to tumble out, written in her husband's distinctive handwriting, were the following words: ‘In case of an accident, remember, honey, it's you I love, not the car.’

The husband put things in perspective. Perspective is the long view of today's grace, maybe today's cross, today's situation, where I'm a bit lost or a bit distressed or looking for answers to questions that have brought me to this retreat.

Today has to be a day of acceptance of the opportunity that God gives me, without fear. Because “today this reading is fulfilled in your hearing.”

God calls us in the opportunity of today to a deeper personal relationship with Him.

There is the story of a Chinese kid who had this big, very decorative, expensive Chinese vase in their house.

One day this little two-year-old put his hand in the big Chinese vase. At the bottom of the vase, he found a coin.

He was pushing and pulling and pushing and pulling. He'd made a grip with his fist on the coin, but his fist wouldn't come out of the neck of the vase.

Then his parents came on the scene. They noticed the child's arm stuck in the vase and they realized he had something in his hand. They told him to let go of whatever it was that he had in his hand.

But he was Chinese. He had found a coin, so he wasn't going to let go. In the end, they had to break the vase.

They broke the vase and when they opened the child's palm, they found he had the equivalent of one shilling. A very small amount of money. For the sake of the one shilling, a very expensive vase was lost.

One spiritual writer says that sometimes, something similar happens in our spiritual life.

We can be very attached to the coins that God has in His hand: the favors I want, help me to pass this exam, help me to get my driving test, help my parents to say yes, help my boyfriend or my girlfriend to agree to what I want.

Sometimes, he said, we're so attached to the coins that God has in His hand, that we forget the hand that gives. We forget the hand of God in our life.

Instead of being so attached to the coins, he said we have to try and reach out and touch that hand, the hand of God in our life.

If you look back over your life, you'll see the hand of God working, who has brought you to be what you are today, who has given you your education, your Christian formation, helped you to be a bit more aware of your Christian vocation, given you so many things.

Now that hand of God is perhaps beckoning to you, touching you. These days of retreat are days of prayer, days of silence, days of formation. God wants us to be silent with Him.

Just like Jesus on many occasions withdrew into the desert alone to pray, to talk to His Father God, to find out a bit more about the jigsaw puzzle of His life, and to find out the plan of God for His life, and the will of God, each one of us has to try and imitate Our Lord’s example and to realize that God has things to say to us and wants us to change, to make resolutions, to make new conversions.

St. John Henry Newman talked about the importance of change in our lives and how God wants us to change often.

Possibly, what we need is a good Confession to lay bare our soul, to let God's grace get in there to the murky deep recesses of our souls that perhaps have not seen the light of day for years.

Or, to get some serious spiritual direction. We all need spiritual direction. Going anywhere in this world we need a coach. Executives need coaches. Sportsmen need coaches.

Anybody who wants their soul to go anywhere, to do anything today, to make use of this opportunity that God has given to them, needs a coach, a spiritual director that they go to regularly to get a few words of advice, to come away maybe with one concrete idea every time from every ten minutes.

If we put those little ten-minute sessions together, over a couple of months we end up with maybe ten or twenty very powerful ideas.

The Holy Spirit works through this means of formation. It helps us to go forward along that journey, that pilgrimage of faith which is our Christian vocation.

All through His life, Our Lord used the word “come.”

“Come, follow me, and I will make you into fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19).

“Master, where do you live?” “Come and see” (John 1:38-39).

“Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you…my yoke is easy, my burden is light” (Matt. 11:28-30).

Our Lord all the time is saying “come.” Come to a new divine intimacy. That's what this retreat is all about.

It's only at the end of His life that He says “go.” “Go you, therefore, teach all nations” (Matt. 28:19).

We have to “come” before we “go.” This retreat is all about the coming.

God wants us to grow spiritually. He has planted a seed in our soul at baptism. He wants it to germinate. He gives it the fertilizer of His grace of formation.

Of course, when you put fertilizer on a plant, on a rose bush or some other plant, you don't see it sprouting up in front of your eyes and producing a wonderful fruit or a wonderful flower. It takes time.

Good wine improves with time. God wants our souls to improve with time. He may have great things prepared for us, just like he had great things prepared in and through the very special life of Joseph, his very ordinary life.

We have to try and examine our conscience and see what areas of our life need conversion.

Do we get drunk? Are we doing drugs? Are we indulging in things we shouldn't be indulging in? Are we a little bit too lazy? Lacking in order? Lacking in charity? Lacking in respect for other people? Lacking in honesty or integrity?

There was a man who was a little bit too drunk, who was coming home from a few too many drinks one night. He happened to spot a rusty nail on the ground.

It was a twisted, bent, rusty nail. It caught his attention, and so he bent down to pick it up. It took him a few goes before he could pick it up because he was very unsteady on his feet, but finally, he got it.

He was thinking: If I could straighten this out and remove the rust, it could be useful some day.

When he sobered up a day or so later, he began to straighten out the nail and he began to get rid of the rust with some sandpaper. As he was working on the nail, the Holy Spirit was working on his soul.

He began to see, “Really my life, my soul, I'm a bit like this rusty nail. What I need to do is to straighten myself out a little bit. Just like I'm straightening out this nail, I need to straighten out my life, straighten out my soul, my conscience.”

He realized he needed to go to a good Confession. Maybe, start a new practice of regular Confession to let the grace of God circulate in his soul.

Sometimes the Holy Spirit works in funny ways—leads us back to God or leads us to see things with greater clarity, things in our life that we need to straighten out, things that are not as they should be.

Maybe He bothers our conscience a little bit. But God also wants us to want that new change and that new conversion, to want it 100 percent.

There was a story of a thief who decided to go to Confession to a priest. He was a pickpocket and he wanted to confess his sins.

He went to confess his sins to the priest face to face. In the course of the Confession, he stole the watch of the priest. He was really an expert pickpocket.

At the end of the Confession, when the priest said, “Is there anything else?” he said, “Oh yes, Father, I forgot. I stole a watch.”

The priest said, “Well, you have to give it back.”

The thief said, “Father, that will be a little bit difficult. But I tell you what, I will give it to you.”

The priest said, “I don't want it—you've got to give it back to the owner.”

The thief said, “The owner doesn't want it.”

The priest said, “In that case, you may keep it.” The thief ended up with the watch of the priest.

One thing you could say about that interchange was that that guy was not very sincere. He really didn't want to change his life.

We can't be sorry for our sins if we're not willing to change our lives. The purpose of amendment has to be present in our Confession.

If a person goes to the priest and says, “Father, I killed fifty people last week, and if I get a chance, I'll kill another fifty next week” the priest will say, “You have to go and try and change your contrition. You have to be ready to amend your life, to change your life.”

Similarly, if a person comes and says, “Father, I'm using contraception” the priest has to say, “Are you willing to stop using contraception before I can give you absolution?”

Or “Are you willing to stop stealing?” “Are you willing to stop getting drunk?” Whatever it is, here and now, we have to be willing to change our lives.

That doesn't mean that I will never take a drink again for the rest of my life, or I will never kill somebody again. But here and now, I want to change my life. That is enough to get a valid absolution because that's valid contrition.

In Scripture, we find the Psalm saying to Our Lord, “Create a new heart in me, O God” (Ps. 51:10).

We come to the retreat to get a new heart. “Take out this heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh” (cf. Ezek. 36:26).

“A humble and contrite heart, O Lord, you will not spurn” (Ps. 51:17).

It has a great importance in our faith in the heart. We get a new heart by washing our souls and our hearts in the waters of Confession. The grace of God flows there and washes away our sins.

But we have to first of all realize that there is something there that needs to be changed.

There is a story of an Irish priest one time whose congregation had a lot of problems with alcoholism. He tried to give a very graphic sermon.

He brought a bottle of whiskey to the pulpit and also a live worm. Then in the sermon, he dropped the live worm into the whiskey.

He said, “I’m going to show you what this whiskey does to this worm.” The worm shriveled up and died because of the acidic nature of the whiskey. “You see, this is what the whiskey does to your insides.”

After the homily, he was very happy with himself; things had gone very well.

But back in the sacristy when he was divesting, a man came into the sacristy and said, “Father, I wonder if I could have the bottle of whiskey because, you see, I'm full of worms.”

One thing you can say about that man is that he was honest. He knew his insides very well. He knew his problems. He knew his weaknesses. He knew his illnesses. He knew what was there deep down inside him.

In the course of our retreat and of our life, we have to try and discover those deep-down things that need changing. God wants us to see them.

He wants us to make resolutions to change them because he wants us to be better, because that's what holiness is all about.

There was a farmer who had to go out to hunt for food for his family. He had three bullets in his rifle. He saw a rabbit. He shot and he missed. Then he saw a fox, and he shot and he missed.

And then he saw a big fat turkey up in a tree. He lifted the rifle to shoot the turkey. But then the voice of conscience deep inside him said: “Aim high, pray first, stay focused.”

As he was about to shoot the turkey, out of the corner of his eye he saw a deer. The deer had more meat than the turkey, so he lowered the rifle to shoot the deer. Then he heard the voice of conscience again: “Aim high, pray first, stay focused.”

Then he saw there was a rattlesnake between his feet and that posed the greatest danger to life and limb. He was about to shoot the rattlesnake, but then he heard the voice of conscience again saying to him: “Aim high, pray first, stay focused.”

He lifted up the rifle to shoot the turkey. He thought he better obey the voice of conscience. He shot the turkey. The bullet ricocheted off a bone in the turkey, hitting the deer and killing the deer.

The impact of shooting the rifle made him lose his balance and he stood on the snake, killed it, and fell backwards into a pond that was full of fish.

When he stood up from the pond, he had a dead turkey, a dead deer, a dead snake, and plenty of fish with which to feed his family.

The moral of the story is that we have to aim high, pray first, stay focused.

We could ask Our Lady that in this retreat, we might use our time well, reading good things, praying a lot, listening to the Holy Spirit, letting God speak to us, because He probably wants a new conversion from us these days. Because “today the Scripture has been fulfilled in our hearing.”

Mary, may you help us to make the changes to our lives that you want us to make.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

DWM