By Lynne fcJ, first appeared at FCJ Sisters Blog
Recently I was listening to an elderly sister talking about her vocation story. In her sharing she said ‘there weren’t as many possibilities back then and I knew this was the thing I should do’.
It struck me that for many of us now, and perhaps even more so for young people, there are countless possibilities of things we might do with our life, and understandably young people want to have a look at the options before making a choice. Choice seems like freedom. But perhaps what Pope Francis writes at the start of the Apostolic Exhortation Christ is Alive!’ reveals something to us. That it is possible to have many experiences but not really experience them! To be so distracted or numbed by all the noise and activity, that it becomes impossible to really be present.
We can, in fact, spend our youth being distracted, skimming the surface of life, half-asleep, incapable of cultivating meaningful relationships or experiencing the deeper things in life. In this way, we can store up a paltry and unsubstantial future. Or we can spend our youth aspiring to beautiful and great things, and thus store up a future full of life and interior richness.
Pope Francis, Christus Vivit 19
Aspiring to BE MORE, to change the world for the better, to make a difference where I am can lead us to a focus and depth that enables us to choose rather than be confounded by possibilities.
How can we cultivate a culture of focus and presence in our lives?
