Ursuline Sisters Elect a New Leadership Team Learn More

For the last few weeks I have been reflecting on the wonders of creation as I am preparing a reflective celebration for Earth Day. Naturally, the preparations brought me to the beginning: “Some 15 billion years ago, a great ball of fire expanded outwards into the creation of the Universe – space and time, shadows and light. The universe expands and cools rapidly”. What happens next did not occur as quickly…far from it! It was only after a million years that things had cooled sufficiently for hydrogen and helium to bring with them new forms of matter… and it was after another billion years that Galaxies came forth It took more than a billion years before stars were born and began a cycle of birth, life and death. Larger stars in their death throes exploded and became supernovas. As they blasted out into the cosmos, Supernovas created in their wombs the elements of life. Then 10 billion years later or 4.6 billion years ago, our Grandmother Star became a supernova. She gave up her life in explosion that gave rise to our Star, what we call the Sun.

Creation is a continuous cycle of birth, of life and of death into birth again. It is the Paschal Mystery in God’s Time: Kairos! It is the hope-filled story of life, of death and of resurrection. We are all and each of us a part of that ever-evolving universe. We are co-creators with this Creator God who fashioned each of us in love and saw that we were GOOD! And so it is with us in the Hands of a Loving God.

Like the Universe, we may be more aware of the down-time, the in-between time before and after the special occurrences in our life Journey. Within each of us there is a natural sense of doubt, a sense that “God is not finished with me yet!” Perhaps there is also an even stronger desire to know where one’s experiences, sufferings, joys, losses and doubts might be leading.

Jesuit Theologian Teilhard de Chardon offers all of us the wisdom that we need no matter where we find ourselves on our Journey with and to our God:

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through some stages of instability- and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you;
Your ideas mature gradually – let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
As though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give Our Lord the benefit of believing.

May all of our journeys be grounded in a patient trust in the creative actions of our loving God who is forming us in God’s time, in Kairos.

(Cosmic Journey references: http:www.rainforestinfo.org.au/deep-eco/cosmic.htm.)

Anne Marie Diederich, OSU