Originally published at Ignatian Spirituality
“The journey of faith is a gift of a loving God who takes the first step and waits patiently, silently, almost shyly for the human response,” writes Vincent Sherlock in Sacred Space: The Prayer Book 2025.
One of my earliest memories of a loving God was preparing for my First Reconciliation. The second-grade class at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Brooklyn, circa 1962, faced our first encounter with God in the confessional with unspoken trepidation.
Launching a “new” relationship with a loving and awesome God weighed on our tender hearts. We soon felt the lift of forgiveness for our infractions, meeting a God who filled our hearts with absolution and a feeling of love.
That sense of wonder and connection marks our first and deepest encounters with God. When we come to him, we find that he has been waiting for us patiently, with open arms, and yes, shyly. We praise and petition; we make our feelings known. We express a conscious desire to know what God wants for us. We wait to hear an answer, and desires take shape in the stillness of our hearts. Then we hear God’s call.
“Everyone has a calling,” explained a theologian
