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Can you tell me how God is at work in your life today? Maybe pause for a moment and give this some thought…where do you see evidence of the Holy Spirit moving through your life?

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What did you come up with? I suspect each person will have a unique take on this. Did anyone answer, “I don’t know”?

If I am being honest, I rarely feel confident in my understanding of how God works in my life at any given point in time. Maybe you are better at this than me, but I find it challenging to discern God at work while God is at work. “In the rearview mirror,” Archbishop Andre Richard used to tell confirmation candidates each year, “you will see signs of God at work in surprising ways.”  My personal challenge has been accepting and navigating the tension of not knowing God as thoroughly as I thought I did.

A number of years ago I had coffee with someone who told me all about the limits of God’s grace, and how God worked in my life. I listened to all he had to say but suspected what he was really talking about was his own inability to understand grace. The likelihood that I am blind to some of my own limitations is quite strong, so I am not well-positioned to be placing limitations on God.

In the past I may have misunderstood getting what I want with God working in my life. I am getting all I wanted so I must have gained special favour with God. When the disciples in today’s gospel asked Jesus, “Who can be saved?” and Jesus replied by saying, “It’s impossible for humans, but not for God,” I am reminded of the danger associated with trying to force the Holy Spirit into a container which is shaped exactly like my own personal biases and worldview.

In Rome the Second Session of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops is taking place from October 2nd-27^th.  This synodal process which began in 2021 is a hopeful sign of our openness to the work of the Holy Spirit, and our willingness to listen to one another amid our differences. This synod has triggered in many feelings of great hope and in others great fear.  What if the Holy Spirit says something I am not comfortable hearing?  

In his opening meditation for this session Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, OP, stated:

This synod will be a moment of grace if we look at each other with compassion, and see people who are like us, searching. Not representatives of parties in the Church, that horrible conservative Cardinal, that frightening feminist! But fellow searchers, who are wounded yet joyful.”

I feel within these spaces where we lack control, God has room to work.

~Trevor Droesbeck