Choice

I mentioned in my 7 Quick Takes post this week on my 100th Lamb blog that I had learned earlier this year that there is a chapel only five minutes away from my office that offers Mass at noon on Wednesdays and Fridays. (Otherwise, I can attend daily Mass only when I am off work because our little chapel here at Old Mission is a half-hour from my office and celebrates Mass at noon.) Although I have known about the near-by chapel and Mass for a while, unfortunately, I have always been tied up at those hours and have been unable to attend Mass (except once about a month ago). Then, I realized something very simple. I have a choice of whether or not I am too busy to make the trip around the corner and down the road. One thing I do not want for sure is to be "too busy" for God. After all, God is never "too busy" for me; how awful would that be if He were to forget about me as often as I forget about Him!

This week I marked "do not schedule" in the 11:30-1:00 blocks on my calendar, so that my admin assistant would not fill them in, either with people wanting to talk to me or people wanting to lunch with me on those two days. It worked like a charm. I walked out of my office both days at 11:30, and while it took me as much as 20 minutes to get to my car because of people catching me in the hallway -- and on Friday, even one employee who walked me to my car in order to talk to me (not the first time that has happened), I did make it to Mass both days. On Friday, I was the lector because the regular lector was not there. I have to say that both days were my best days at work: calm, quiet, productive, pleasant. Perhaps that is because on those days I had my priorities straight.

Although I do start and end the day in prayer (and often cry out for help in between), having the opportunity to worship God together with others is a special gift, one that I have decided not to miss claiming in the future. I have marked those times on my calendar now as "do not schedule" ad infinitum. I have a previous and more important engagement that I have chosen to honor.

Spoiled

(Note: This post follows on from the previous post, Arrogance.)
Looking back on that awful day and what I had done and felt, I should have been punished. Instead, a loving God brought me home to San Ignatio, back to Him in every meaning of that phrase, back to where I belong, where nothing of the material world matters. Now, too, I could look forward to being on time two days later for the retreat being led by Fr. Kevin, who also leads a contemplative-prayer-for-busy-people group in San Jose that I have participated in for nearly two years now. I would have had to arrive late because of returning from out of state.

I took the next day off from work -- I was owed comp time -- to be with God now that I was back in a spiritual environment. What a marvelous day that turned out to be!

The first thing after I arose (later than normal, yes!) I checked my email. Astonished, I read one note twice. It was the cancellation of a mandatory meeting on Friday, the second day of the retreat. I had worked it out with Fr. Kevin that it would be okay to miss Friday because of that meeting. Now I would have no distractions during the retreat!

A short while later, I attended noon Mass in the little chapel, celebrated by Fr. Paul on his last day in our community before returning home to Nigeria. Still reeling perhaps from my out-of-control behavior on Monday, I felt so very unworthy to be there and at the same time so loved. As I stood in line for communion, I could not keep the tears from pooling in my eyes, and I did not care if anyone saw them; we are all friends and all God's children.

Following Mass, two friends (one of them the person who assisted the priest in my RCIA class) asked me to join them for the rosary, after which we went out for cookies and milk. (I admit it; milk has always been my favorite drink.)

During our milk-and-cookie fest, I told my friends about my plaintive prayer, in which I bemoaned my separation from San Ignatio and loss of a sense of God's presence in the past few day's tumult, and how everything had suddenly worked out for me to spend the entire rest of the week with Him. One of my friends reiterated what a Sufi friend told me several years ago, word for word: "God spoils you."

Indeed, He does! And I am so very grateful!