In his autobiography, St. Ignatius Loyola recounts how “the greatest consolation he used to receive was to look at the sky and the stars, which he did often and for a long time, because with this he used to feel in himself a great impetus towards serving Our Lord.” (11)
Ignatius’s fondness for stargazing resonates with me, as a result of nature is my go-to put for locating God. When my prayer life is dry, going out into nature invariably brings me again to God, as in all places I flip, I see God’s presents. When my prayer life is lush, it turns into much more verdant once I’m in nature, as a result of the extra I see, the extra reward emanates from my coronary heart.
The different day, I used to be strolling alongside, admiring the bronze and golden leaves lining my path. I observed earlier than me a stretch of sidewalk upon which leaves had left indelible imprints. Some prints had been delicate and excellent, whereas others had been smudged.
These leaves left a silhouette in my thoughts that lingered lengthy after I handed that stretch of concrete. As I walked alongside, I spotted that, though they’d lived solely half a yr at most, on this quick time they’d brightened my path with vibrant greens within the spring, shaded my face from the searing solar in the summertime, and now, even in loss of life, had left their mark upon the earth—and my coronary heart. I continued on, considering how God had created each leaf, each blade of grass, each butterfly, and each rainbow—and how, regardless of their fleeting existence, their presences had left a long-lasting impression on me. I discovered myself buzzing the outdated hymn, “How Can I Keep from Singing?”
As I ambled on, I believed too of all of the people who God has created. If we think about our lives towards the backdrop of eternity, our life span is akin to that of a leaf. St. John Paul II’s phrases got here to thoughts:
A human being is an object to be counted, one thing thought of underneath the side of amount, one among many thousands and thousands. Yet on the similar time he’s a single being, distinctive and unrepeatable…If our human statistics, human classes, human political, financial and social programs, and mere human prospects fail to make sure that man will be born, stay and act as one who is exclusive and unrepeatable, then all that is ensured by God. For God and earlier than God, the human being is at all times distinctive and unrepeatable, someone considered and chosen from eternity, some referred to as and recognized by his personal identify. (Urbi et Orbi Message, Christmas 1978, 1).
Isn’t that stunning? Like the leaves of autumn, we’re every “unique and unrepeatable” and “chosen from eternity.”
It makes me surprise, what shall be my imprint upon the earth?
And you, my “unique and unrepeatable” pal, what is going to your imprint be?