RBWords - Volume 22 - Number 1: January 2009
Something to Think About
A new year is a time of mostly secular hope. Resolutions are made about lifestyle and jobs. If nothing else folks wish for a new year just like or just the opposite of the previous one. Still, some folks find their faith to be a motivating factor in facing the next twelve months. They resolve to pray more often, become more involved in their church or at least be a “kinder, gentler” person! Secular research shows that most New Year’s Resolutions last about a month!
The first edition of RBWORDS in each year is a moment when I think about what happened last year and what is on the horizon for the coming year. I do this particularly in the annual retreat I make out in Tucson in early January. I organize my thoughts and hopes in terms of what we Dominicans call the “four pillars” of Dominican life: prayer, study, community and ministry. So, I ask myself how I feel I prayed, learned, loved and served during the past year? I put some of this in notes occasionally and share them with close friends for honest feedback.
With regard to the year ahead, I can ask questions about what I want to do or be in regard to those four pillars. I know that I will be moving to a new assignment in late Spring in Austin, TX. I will be engaged in full time itinerant preaching with Austin as the base. This is certainly a major event and its impact on those four pillars in my Dominican life will be important. I offer those four “pillars” to you, my beloved readers, as a way of thinking about New Year’s Resolutions.
On a broader level, the inauguration of a new President for our country will have its impact on all of us. He has already done things that I agree with completely and disagree with completely. His will be no dull presidency! I certainly pray he can help the economy to turn around. I am the chairman of the trust that supports our retired and infirm friars and it is painful to see that resource diminished by forces that I have little power to restrain! I also pray that he can bring peace to our land and world. IT’S SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT!
It Has Been Said
“In our efforts to live the call and challenge of the gospel, certain ways of acting emerge that clearly appear to be in conflict with the gospel and other modes of action that seem to be responsible ways of responding to the call of the gospel. In some cases it would be relatively easy to see what courses of action accorded with the gospel and what did not. Other situations might not be so clear; and there are times when we have to live with questions and search for satisfactory answers. Yet to do so is much better than accepting inadequate answers simply because we feel uncomfortable living with questions and insist on having an answer now, no matter what. Sometimes this need to have an immediate answer at all costs has meant a sacrifice of true integrity in our fidelity to the gospel and to Jesus Christ.”
From SILENCE ON FIRE – PRAYER OF AWARENESS by William H. Shannon