[For my Chaplain-ministerial students in the doctoral class I am teaching on vocational renewal.]
Dearest ones in Christ:
As I am preparing to come to you for the week I read the words of Tho. Merton that reminded me: we are stealing away for a week of study and reflection not to escape ministry, but to more fully re-enter it.
Thomas Merton reflected in New Seeds of Contemplation that
“We do not go into the desert to escape people but to learn how to find them; we do not leave them in order to have nothing more to do with them, but to find out the way to do them the most good.”
We do not have to have a vocation of a monastic to learn the lesson of sanctifying solitude for Christ and, therefore, for His children.
Let us inaugurate begin our classes this week by sanctifying solitude for public ministry.