Day 2. By the River
Vocation Discernment Preliminary Novena
“Am I Ready for Discernment?”
The same night [Jacob] got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying,“For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”
Genesis 32:22-30 NRSVCE
“How he loved this river, how it enchanted him, how grateful he was to it!…Yes, he wanted to learn from it, he wanted to listen to it. It seemed to him that whoever understood this river and its secrets would understand much more, many secrets, all secrets.”
Herman Hesse, Siddhartha
The river is a powerful symbol for many religions of the world. For Buddha, it was the place where he attained enlightenment. In Hinduism, the Ganges River cleanses pilgrims and purifies them for worship. For Jews the Jordan River is the threshold to the Promised Land and for Christians, it is the place of rebirth through baptism.
For Jews and Christians, crossing over is an especially significant image. To cross over from one side of the river to another is a definitive, conclusive break with what is left behind. It expresses faith in God’s provision, openness to God’s plan and particularly for Christians it is a form of death that leads to new life.
As we continue this nine-day preparatory novena, we look at the river imagery in the passage about Jacob. “He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone…” (v. 24f). As I pointed out yesterday, Jacob is facing the very real possibility of his own death. As he sits by the river weighing his fate, he has good reason to expect the worst in his impending meeting with his brother Esau. He is alone with his thoughts and fears.
Use your imagination. Can you feel that intense loneliness? It is dark. There is no sound except for the water flowing by. The short phrases of this passage belie a disturbingly stark and aching scene in this man’s life.
But we observed yesterday that Jacob’s circumstances are so different from yours. As you consider whether or not to embark on a 90 day period of discernment, you are hardly in a position of life or death. For you this is a time of joyful possibility. For Jacob it is a grim confrontation with a shameful past. My question to you is this: if your situation is so different from Jacob’s, are you nonetheless approaching this time with the same sense of doom as he?
I’ve watched many people consider God’s will for their lives in a period of discernment. I’m often struck by the somberness of their approach. You’d think some were being marched off to the gallows rather than opened up to God’s purposes. How strange.
If you are familiar with the story of Jacob’s life, you know that he was not facing death that night. In fact, God had enormous blessings prepared for him that unfold in the chapters that follow. He didn’t suspect the goodness of his God. Do you?
For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord... (Jer. 29:11-14a NRSV)
It is true that discernment is the setting aside of cherished plans and dreams, for a time, in order to consider deeply the mystery of God’s plan; God’s will. It may be lonely and it could be unnerving, but it need not be a gloomy or a sad time. Remember what we said yesterday: you’ve only got one life, and God’s plan for you is an unrepeatable gift. You are unwrapping that gift in a way that will never happen again for the rest of your life. So trust God and enjoy the adventure.
Christian tradition sees in the river imagery of the Old Testament a prophetic anticipation of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. As you spend this time by the river, I urge you to be silent and listen. Let the Spirit speak to you. Don’t try to put words in his mouth (The New Testament depicts him as a dove. Why do so many treat him as their parrot?!). Let the river unfold its secrets, your secrets. Trust God. He desires your happiness.
There is one particular image of a river with which we will end today’s reflection. The prophet Ezekiel describes in a vision a small trickle of water that flows out the east gate of the temple toward the sea. As it flows, it grows so that it becomes a river too wide and too deep to cross. “Then [the angel] led me back along the bank of the river. As I came back, I saw on the bank of the river a great many trees on the one side and on the other. He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah; and when it enters the sea, the sea of stagnant waters, the water will become fresh. Wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish, once these waters reach there. It will become fresh; and everything will live where the river goes. ...On the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.” (Ezk. 47:6,7,9,12 NRSV)
The disciple who listens to the voice of the Holy Spirit is like one of the trees along this great river. Your roots draw life from the river, which is the Spirit, and your branches bear fruit for food and leaves for medicine. Your life will become a source of encouragement and instruction and of healing for others. God will feed his people through you. You will be like “the just” of whom scripture says, “They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper.” (Ps. 1:3 NRSV)
Pray today that God will grant you this: a deep, and peaceful trust in his guidance, in his plans for your life. Confess to him your fears. Turn away from them. Choose faith. You cannot imagine the possibilities. “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, …God has prepared for those who love him.” (1 Cor. 2:9 NRSV)
Novena Prayer
MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
- Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
© Abbey of Gethsemani
Make it My Own
Daily Discernment Workbook
BREAK OPEN YOUR BIBLE
1. What does it mean to be “just”?
Being just, that is, obedient before God, has its benefits.
Read the passages below and list the promise God makes to those who are just.
Psalm 1:6
Proverbs 11:21
Psalm 125:3
Psalm 34:16 and 20
Psalm 14:5
Psalm 112 (the whole psalm)
In my own words, what does it mean to be “just” before God?
A QUOTE TO NOTE
2. River of Life.
On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’”
-John 7:37, 38 NRSVCE
Pope Benedict XVI writes that Jesus’ declaration in the Temple about himself as the source of living waters is a reference to the prophetic image from Ezekiel we considered in today’s meditation.
The promised river of life that decontaminates the briny soil and allows the fullness of life to ripen and bear fruit really does exist. It is He who, in “loving to the end,” endured the Cross and now lives with a life that can never again be threatened by death. It is the living Christ. Accordingly, Jesus’ words during the Feast of Tabernacles not only point forward to the new Jerusalem where God himself lives and is the fountain of life, but also point immediately ahead to the body of the Crucified, out of which blood and water flow (cf. Jn. 19:34). It shows the body of Jesus to be the real Temple, built not of stone nor by human hands; hence—because it signifies the living indwelling of God in the world—it is, and will remain, the source of life for all ages.
Jesus of Nazareth, Vol. I, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger/Benedict XVI
How is my relationship with Jesus a source of life on a daily basis?
What are some of the spiritual “thirsts” that Jesus has satisfied for me (for example, loneliness or understanding or faith). Write a brief explanation of what happened.
Conclude with
“Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be.
World without end, Amen.”
[0] lead quote - Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse, tr. by Hilda Rosner, Bantam Books, New York, 1971, ch. 9 The Ferryman
[1] Jesus of Nazareth, Vol. I, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, tr. by Adrian J. Walker, New York, Doubleday, 2007, pp. 247f
All Scripture quotes from the New American Bible, unless otherwise specified