I have had the joy of being on junior retreat with my awesome juniors! I teach every junior in our high school and it is a pleasure. They are all so different, some more challenging than others but I can easily see their gifts. On this retreat they are asked to explore the gifts that they have been given. It’s difficult for many of them to acknowledge the gifts that others easily see in them.
They are also exploring their growth from freshmen year to now. How have they grown in their relationship with God and one another? Our lives are so busy, complex, and overloaded that it is very challenging to carve out the time for self-reflection. However, if we don’t take the time to reflect will we know where we are in life? Will we be able to grow? Will we strengthen our relationship with God and in turn others in our lives?
Today, take a little time to reflect on your gifts. Reflect on your growth over the last few years. Are you closer to God or more distance? What has happened that changed that relationship? Has your relationship with others changed as well? Take some time today to have your own small retreat.
I’m trying to learn a bit about Thomas Merton, so I’m taking a 4 week class at Bellarmine. This week’s topic was “Love is the virtue of the heart”. Our instructor shared the following quote on being gift taken from Merton’s book Springs of Contemplation.
“Love is being itself. Like a spring coming up out of the ground of our own depths. ‘I am gift.’ All that I am is something that’s given, and given freely. Being doesn’t cost anything. There’s no price tag, no strings attached. It’s simply given.”
Like your juniors on retreat, the instructor encouraged us to explore the idea of ourselves as gift. A gift from the very depth of our beings; gift intrinsic to the unique creation we are. No matter our age it is good to think about what is at our core and how we’ll choose to give ourselves to others.