When I went to see Fr. Gene at the abbey a few weeks ago, he asked me what Our Lady of Guadalupe has been telling me lately. While I’m not sure I had thought about it beforehand, it didn’t take me long to answer.
Patience, it has been all about patience recently.
I remember when I was working with Fr. Josh in Naperville on my annulment and one day– I don’t remember the conversation around it– he said that he was talking more with Mary because she was a patience person and that he needed help with his patience.
As the pandemic has dragged out (I thought we would long be past it by now– silly me) and my work in many ways continues to hang in the balance (at this point I’m hoping that we can make it back to LA in March, no later than summer for the events that were canceled this year), what could be more harder than having to be patient?
I have plenty to do and each day I keep myself busy with a list of things to do so long that I never complete them. By Friday I wonder where the week went. And yet there is a part of me that has to constantly stay the course and keep myself from being distracted. My self talk is at an all-time high.
There are no other messages right now. It’s all about continuing to make the most of this quirky time. For me, I’m thinking of what I’d like to know I accomplished by the time it’s over. And in that same vein, I want to walk away knowing that this time was not wasted, that I’m a better person.
And being a better person also means I’ve become a more patient person. Guadalupe keeps telling me this and while sometimes I don’t understand what she’s talking about, I do know that somewhere along the line I do realize she was right.