The first flowerings of Time

Hans Urs von Balthasar, in his beautiful book 'The Grain of Wheat: aphorisms' writes:
"Time is the revealer of love through its manifoldness, through its slow unfurling of millions of possibilities. Time is the fully unfolded intensity of love, since within Time love can take on the wonderful meaning of a story, of a process."

And so, my present stage of waiting has come to a close. Last night the Novice Master of the English Dominicans rang me to say that the Coetus (the board of six who advise the Prior Provincial on admissions, from the Latin meaning 'congregation') will meet on June 8 and they would like to fit my application into that meeting. As such I have to visit London, Leicester and Cambridge next week for interviews with the members of the Coetus. Since then, I have been trying to arrange times and dates for these interviews next week.

A school-mate of mine once said: "We rush to wait and then wait to rush..." and it struck me then and now as a truism!

As Cardinal Von Balthasar says so poetically, life is a story, a process, a journey that is slowly unfurling in the grace that we call Time. The past weeks of waiting has helped me to appreciate this better and now slowly but inexorably, like a flower opening to the sunshine, the possibilities are being revealed... in God's time; the revelation of his loving plan for us.

It is rather like the picture above taken on the island of Corrigedor, the Philippines. Behind, one sees the Mile Long Barracks, bombed in the Second World War. But in the foreground blooms a splendid "Flame of the Forest" tree (Delonix regia) framing the sad ruins. So too, God in Time, brings beauty and life out of apparent ruin, death and destruction. After all, is he not the God of the Resurrection? But all this takes time, just as it has taken years for that tree to grow, reach and blossom so flamboyantly.

There are still the interviews to undertake, then waiting for the Coetus to meet and then waiting for the Prior Provincial's decision - so this is but the initial flowering. Of your charity, please continue to pray for me and for those who will help me to discern God's will.

I entrust us to Our Lady of the Rosary and St Dominic.