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Staying Found
Good Shepherd Sunday. Jesus, the "Shepherd and Bishop" of our souls, gave me many graces appropriate to this day. "I know mine and mine know me" (John 10:14). "My sheep hear my voice." I read over St. John of the Cross's Cautions, which were the things I had in mind to keep when I made my solemn profession, and I see to my dismay how much I had forgotten them.
I went to Fr. Placid in the confessional and he told me I was too restless and that what I was looking for (union with God) was right in front of my nose and I couldn't see it. Also, there was no earthly reason why any amount of work should prevent my union with God, provided it is His will.
And all that is true. My mind is scattered among things, not because of my work, but became (sic) I am not detached, and I do not attend first of all to God. On the other hand, I do not attend to Him because I am so absorbed in all these objects and events. I have to wait on His grace. But how stubborn and slow my nature is. And how I keep confusing myself and complicating things for myself by useless twisting and turning.
What I need most of all is the grace to really accept God as He gives Himself to me in every situation: "He came unto His own and His own received Him not."
Good Shepherd, You have a wild and crazy sheep in love with thorns and brambles. But please don't get tired of looking for me! I know You won't. For You have found me. All I have to do is stay found.
April 11, 1948, II.198-99
"Good Shepherd, You have a wild and crazy sheep in love with thorns and brambles. But please don't get tired of looking for me! I know You won't. For You have found me. All I have to do is stay found."
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