Nothing happens - or has everything happened? Reflections from a DDO

AS DIOCESAN directors of ordinands we journey together with those exploring a calling and listen to the story of their felt experiences. We encourage them to go slowly and go deeper. When the disciples on the Emmaus road truncate their sharing with the stranger by asking “Are you the only one who does not know the things that have happened?” Jesus replies “What things?”. Go further, go deeper in. Embodying attentive presence, Jesus has them explore the depths of their experience, and only then does he begin to share with them. Handling what they have shared gently, he reconfigures their experience around his death on the cross, and without jettisoning their emotional investment or the actual events, he opens a kingdom discernment of their relevance.

Warming to their companion, as yet unrecognised, they invite him into their home in Emmaus as evening falls. Space has opened up within their tired and battered minds. The burning hearts they testify to later, are already kindling. Within the intimacy of their own home and table, as their companion breaks the bread of supper, they recognise the risen Christ, the beyond in their midst, and seamlessly feel the call of the community of faith. To this they return, accepting the mission of being witnesses to the resurrection and the kingdom. So they complete a fourteen mile journey and arrive where they started.

Back where they began, nothing has changed and everything has changed. This is close to the experience of vocation, where a depth charge has gone off while the surface remains the same. We journey with those who feel something has happened they need to address

* Full article available in printed copies.

Paul Draper

is Dean of Lismore and director of ordinands for Cashel Ferns and Ossory diocese.