This put up is predicated on Week Eight of An Ignatian Prayer Adventure.
I don’t like cats.
We by no means had a cat rising up. We have been all allergic. If I spent greater than 5 minutes in a room with a cat—and even in a room in a home with a cat, even when the cat have been nowhere in sight—my eyes would itch, my pores and skin would flip purple, and I’d begin to sneeze.
“Do you have cat?” I’d mutter.
“Oh, yes. But it’s in the other room.”
“Doesn’t matter.” I’d grimace and purse my lips collectively and stumble outdoors, determined for contemporary, cat-free air.
Why not get a canine? Cats all the time struck me as aloof, like company in the home, passing by means of infrequently however with no actual affection. Feed me, and I’ll be on my method. Why even trouble?
Cats are dangerous information. And I don’t want them in my life.
But you understand what I would like in my life even much less? Mice. And we encountered just a few too lots of these wandering unchecked about our house. And so my spouse and I quickly discovered our search engines like google and yahoo auto-filling with “hypoallergenic cats to chase mice.”
Now, we’ve got a cat.
Sebastian is lovable. Our ladies love him, and he—in opposition to all conceivable odds—doesn’t thoughts the headlocks the one-year-old places him in or the fixed cuddles the four-year-old seeks out. He’s an amazing cat, the ladies are tremendous comfortable, and I haven’t seen any mice in an extended whereas. And our native pharmacy will certainly see an uptick in its sale of allergy medicine.
Win-win-win. Win.
The Fourth Week of the Spiritual Exercises is all about Resurrection. It might seem to be the apparent conclusion to a retreat that started by bringing us face-to-face with the results of sin in our world. Of course, we are saying. God is larger than sin and evil; God wins in the finish.
But if that’s our solely takeaway from these Exercises, then we’ve missed the mark.
As we learn in An Ignatian Prayer Adventure, “Resurrection refers to the event of God’s transformation of life, making all things new.” Transformation is essential. Our encounter with the Risen Christ—with our pal Jesus, who we’ve come to know so intimately over these previous weeks—transforms us. As we’ve been reminded all through this Ignatian Year, we’re referred to as “to see all things new in Christ.”
Jesus has risen for me.
From the vantage level of the Resurrection, the world—and our vocation inside it—appears totally different. We essentially ask the query: How may I reply in love and service? What am I being referred to as to have a look at otherwise, in order to see with new eyes?
I didn’t like cats. I nonetheless may not, typically talking. But I really like my cat. Sebastian has change into a singular, specific cat, and from that encounter, a relationship has grown. There’s new pleasure in my house, and my whole household has benefited.
And that relationship—that pleasure—was solely pursued after an actual and irritating expertise of one-too-many mice.
The stakes are fairly low with a cat. But the stakes are fairly excessive after we have a look at our world, at the locations the place these proverbial mice are inflicting bother.
Our expertise of sin and dysfunction in our world explored by means of the Exercises isn’t meant to make us really feel responsible; it’s meant to guide us to motion, to the love and service of God and God’s creation. It’s meant to guide us to a renewed want for the issues of God.
And that want, like these many graces we’ve been praying for all through our expertise of the Exercises, leads us into the coronary heart of Christ and into friendship with Jesus—not in a imprecise, basic method however in an intimate, particular method. It’s you Jesus wishes to have breakfast with by the seashore. It’s you Jesus meets alongside the technique to Emmaus.
Set apart basic concepts of gods and cats. As we interact the Easter season, know that our God offers with us in the specific—and we’re invited to do the identical.