The Sacrament of Waiting (excerpt)

The Sacrament of Waiting (excerpt)
by Fr. James F. Donelan, SJ

Why is this? Why can we not have it right now what we so desperately want and need? Why must we wait—-two years, three years-and seemingly waste so much time? You might as well ask why a tree should take so long to bear fruit-—the seed to flower-—carbon to change to diamond.

There is no simple answer-—no more than there is to life's other demands-—having to say goodbye to someone you love because either you or they have made other commitments; or because they have to grow and find the meaning of their own lives—-having yourself to leave home and loved ones to find your own path—-good-byes, like waiting, are also sacraments of our lives.

All we know is that growth—-the budding, the flowering of love needs patient waiting. We have to give each other a time to grow. There is no way we can make someone else truly love us or we them, except through time. So we give each other that mysterious gift of waiting—-of being present without asking demands and rewards. There is nothing harder to do than this. It truly tests the depth and sincerity of our love. But there is life in the gift we give.

So lovers wait for each other-—until they can see things the same way—-or let each other freely see things in quite different ways.

[...]
What do we lose when we refuse to wait; when we try to find shortcuts through life-when we try to incubate love and rush blindly and foolishly into a commitment we are neither mature nor responsible enough to assume? We lose the hope of truly loving or of being loved. Think of all the great love stories of history and literature-—isn’ t it of their very essence that they are filled with this strange but common mystery-—that waiting is part of the substance—-the basic fabric against which the story of
that true love is written.

How can we ever find either life or true love if we are too impatient to wait for it?


this was given to us when we had our retreat last 2002 hahaha tagal na pla