Dear Friends,
One of the tasks I ask those who come to me for spiritual direction to undertake is the keeping of a spiritual journal. The journal is a tool for self-reflection that allows the directee to cooperate with the Holy Spirit to make sense of the deepening work God is doing.
When the directee is hesitant, I refer them to the Psalms. Most likely they have been praying with the psalms all their lives. They have probably gotten a lot of spiritual consolation from the psalms. However, the one who likely benefited the most was King David, who is believed to have written approximately half the psalms. Writing down reflections, as David did, we can examine and ponder over them. David wrote psalms of great thanksgiving and joy as well as psalms of great sorrow which question God’s presence.
Some people will say, I cannot write or I am not a good writer. You don’t have to be a writer. A spiritual journal is written for an audience of two: you and God. Proper grammar, spelling or style is inconsequential. You can write whatever you want. Write about whatever the Spirit inspires in you – your successes and struggles in following Jesus, your fears, your joys, poems, or lessons learned from praying over Scripture.
A great benefit also comes from reviewing your writings. Reading what you’ve written in the past, helps you to remember forgotten insights and gauge your spiritual growth. Before each meeting in spiritual direction, I ask the Directee to read over their journal for the past few months and see if there is anything in particular that God seems to be saying to them.
Those of you who have been joining us to watch The Chosen may have noticed that the series shows Matthew and John with small journals taking notes of the things that Jesus said and did. I love that example of keeping a spiritual journal. And look at the benefit to humanity in the two gospels that emerge from their journals!
I think there would be a great benefit for us, as a parish, to undertake a similar spiritual task as a community. We have just lived through an extraordinary year. The last time such a thing happened was over a hundred years ago with the Flu in 1918. How about writing down your experiences and feelings from the past year and putting all that together as a parish?
Sharing them as a community could help us better understand our own experience and grow in our relationship with God and with one another. Perhaps, we could make them part of our coming out of Covid party on August 14th or we could use them in our annual report or we could combine them all for posterity in our parish history.
Would you consider joining me in this spiritual reflection experience? In the bulletin today, are some questions to get you started. There is also a way to do this online at:
https://stcabriniomaha.org/cabrini-reflections/
You can mail your responses back to us, drop them in the collection basket at Mass, drop them off at the Cabrini Center, do them online or email them, whatever is easier for you. My hope is that this reflection makes you even more aware of the deepening work God is doing in you and in us as a parish family.
Peace,
Fr. Damian