When there are obstacles, there will always be a reason for them…
Sometimes life does not go according to plan. Sometimes, the things that I had set my heart on doing or achieving are simply the things that just do not work out. They are the things that fail or falter or cause me problems. They are the things that I end up walking away from.
When I was younger, and following the birth of my first child, I decided to commence my PhD studies in the area of taxation law. I know that may seem a very boring area of expertise to many, but I have always found the area of law fascinating and have always been fixated on the lateral thinking involved in commercial strategies that provide taxation benefits without having the taxation benefit being the primary reason for the strategy…
However, due to a variety of reasons I was unable to continue with this plan and I withdrew from these studies. And for some time afterwards, I felt a terrible sense of failure because I had been unable to complete what I had started. Over time, the decision to withdraw – though a difficult one – proved to be the right decision.
And I have been thinking about that today as I have been thinking about the importance of the interior life. You see, there are often obstacles to a strong interior life that seem to be almost invisible to us until after they are gone.
Saint Julie Billiart was a French Saint who lived through the French Revolution. She was known for her saintliness even during her life, having learned the Catechism by heart by the time she was seven years old, and being given dispensation to receive her First Holy Communion at the age of nine, after spending her time educating her peers on the Catechism. By the time she turned twenty-two, she had become ill and paralysed and was bed-ridden for the next twenty-two years. She received Holy Communion daily and catechized the village children from her bedside. She made linen and laces for the altars and spent her days in contemplative prayer. She was smuggled to safety during the French Revolution and taught the women who attended her, the ways of interior life. She founded the Institute of the Sisters of Notre Dame, which was dedicated to educating girls and to training catechists. In 1804, she took her vows and at the same time she was cured of her paralysis. The obstacles to her active life were lifted and she spent the next twelve years making over a hundred journeys to establish fifteen convents for her order.
And I have been thinking about this Saint today, because the life she lived was fit to purpose. When God needed her to strengthen her interior life – in preparation for the work she was yet to do, she was physically paralysed. And when He needed her to do the work of the convents, her paralysis was lifted. And it seems to me today, that I should have far more faith in my God than I do. For when there are obstacles, there will always be a reason for them…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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