pat loughery

I recently ran into this poem by the Ignatian priest, Pierre Teihard de Chardin.  It speaks well to the long work of formation.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
     to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way
     to something unknown, 
         something new.
Yet it is the law of all progress that is made
     by passing through some stages of instability
         and that may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.
Let them shape themselves without undue haste.
Do not try to force them on 
     as though you could be today what time
         — that is to say, grace —
     and circumstances 
        acting on your own good will 
     will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new Spirit
     gradually forming in you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing 
     that his hand is leading you,
     and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
         in suspense and incomplete.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God,
     our loving vine-dresser.

Amen.