July 18, 2005   

"Who, Me?"

After the Resurrection, Jesus said to Peter, "Peter, I want you now to feed My sheep.  I want you to feed My lambs."  Remember, Peter was a fisherman.  He is getting a new commission here.  This is a different type of work.  He has not had any training in farming.  He doesn't know much about sheep.  When we first got our sheep at Bellwether, we didn't either.  You have to learn about them.  Jesus is simply saying, "Feed them, Peter.  Feed My lambs."  Wouldn't you think Peter would have had a lot of questions or maybe been a little argumentative?  "Lord, You might not remember, but I know I do not do well fishing without You, but really that is what I do for a living.  That is who I am.  I am a fisherman.  I do not know anything about sheep."  But there were no questions from Peter.  Look at the trust!  He has become as a little child.  He has really changed.  This level of prayer will start to change us because we are receiving.  We are receiving.  Children do not have a problem receiving.  When we become little like this, when we are the recipients of these visitations, these mystical touches, we love to receive as well.  We expect more and more and more and this is why Hope has a deeper birthing as well.

Now He also says to Peter (and once upon a time this would have been very frightening to Peter.  Peter, with his rationale; Peter, who also was so afraid that he was not there at the crucifixion; Peter who was so afraid that he might be put to death, himself, that he actually lied about even knowing Jesus) - to this same Peter, Jesus is saying now, "When you are older you will stretch out your hands and another will tie you fast and carry you off against your will."  And Peter is silent.  There is not a word in Scripture about that.  That normally would have scared him to death, "Oh, nobody is going to do that to me, Lord."   He is silent.  The very next words after Jesus tells him what is going to happen to him is that Jesus says to him, "Follow Me."  Follow me.  Follow me.  Not "Where," not "How or who is going to take care of us?  Lord, how am I going to live?"  Nothing.  All the questions he might have had previously.  He has reached this new level of trust - "Follow Me."  

This is how this level of prayer will start to change our attitude and the relationship because we are in another level of relationship.  We are getting to know this God and His goodness, His kindness, and His fidelity to His mission to be one with us.  So, "Follow Me."  These were men who were very impatient, just as all of us are.  Now Jesus is saying to them (before the Ascension, after all that He had said to them), "Wait.  Wait."  They had all this information but, "Wait until you are clothed with power from on high."  There is more.  You don't have it all. "Wait." 

Have you ever received something in prayer, something that you really, really know is from God?  You've checked it out, you've gone through the right process, and then God tells you to wait.  I went through a year of discernment in the cloister because God kept calling me, calling me, calling me.  I went through two private eight-day retreats and then finally a grueling, thirty-day discernment retreat at a retreat house in Spokane, WA.  It was a year of discernment.  It was a long time.  By the time the thirty-day retreat was over (there was a Bishop, two priests, and a sister on the board), I had a lot of information about what God wanted.  Then the next to the last day of the retreat, when everything was in place, all the discernment had been done, and even the discernment team had said, "This is the Lord", God said, "Not now."  I couldn't believe it!  "Not now."  So, we wait.  He didn't say how long.  At this point, we learn that He will let us know when He wants us to know.  It is just as He said, "It is no concern of yours."  We learn to trust.  So I waited and I waited and I waited.  I thought, it was probably going to be forever and that was okay.  It is amazing how you can shift into whatever God wants.  A year of all this discernment, plus now another seven months of waiting before the Assistant General of the congregation I was in came and said, "We also have been discerning these months and we have discerned that God is calling you, and we want you to go with our blessing."  It was like, I remember, the whole roof came off of the building that day!  The Lord was kind of there smiling, "Now!  Now we go!"  So you wait.  We learn these things.  They learned this, too.  We find that our prayer at this level is changing us and our responses to God become quite different.

Excerpt from Mother Nadine's "New Wine," Omaha, NE, 2004.