Our Ministries
13 Jan

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

I Come to Do Your Will

Almost eight years ago, I was besieged by calls from Sister Frances. Her first question was always, “Rose, has the Holy Spirit spoken to you yet?” You see, she was trying to get me to say YES to ministering at St. Francis. I put her off at least three times. Each time, she persistently invoked the Holy Spirit!

I believe the Spirit came upon me at the Easter Triduum, when I experienced the St. Francis community for the first time. I tried to be anonymous, sat in a back pew, observed all that was happening from a visitor’s perspective. I was trying out a “fit.” You see, I could not imagine myself working in a parish. All of my life, practically, was situated in convent Masses—with adult women, primarily, related by congregational bonds. We were all Sisters, all women of different ages, all adults. For me, it was hard to imagine how I would fit in PARISH life.

And then something changed. As I experienced Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter Vigil, I know the Holy Spirit visited me. I know that I never looked at my watch, not once, during the Easter Vigil. The music, the silent reflection, the readings, and then the adult baptisms and confirmations were like the movements in a symphony. I was captivated and captured. Suddenly, I knew that I could do this!  I felt the Spirit.

The psalm response for this Sunday became profoundly real for me, almost as strong as my first profession of vows as a Sister of Divine Providence. “Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.”

In all of our lives, I think we all get chosen for something. It may not be for fame, greatness, or fortune. Rather, we know that we are called for something beyond what we would imagine, dream or choose. That’s when the Spirit comes upon us, usually out of the blue, and we find ourselves moving out of our comfort zones, to something that is good and probably “stretching” us to BE more or to DO more. It becomes clear that we can’t help but say YES.

When have you found the Holy Spirit calling you to something new?  To stretch you? To grow sacrificially? And can you too respond, “Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will?”

I hope your life is filled with many responses of “I can do this!”

Welcome to St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church