October 1, 2022 🌹

Consolations can be a stumbling block in the spiritual life:  things just keep working out my way, look how blessed I am, the fortunes are raining down, this special rosary of mine, these sweet feelings, but when the winds of life change – and they will – what is underneath?  Indeed, while the living God has a thousand little ways of getting us excited about our human journeys and nudging us toward the infinite, there is no substitute for that glorious risk and act of faith that actually gets us to step out into the unknown (Mt 14:22-33).  Our heavenly mother is constantly engineering opportunities for us to take flight.  Initially, we may feel comfortable in the consolation nest and indifferent to any other version of life.  Nevertheless, we will get to the point where either interior dissatisfaction or external circumstances will demand a decision of us, and when the time is right – oh how patient she is! – we will spread our wings and we will fly (Is 40:31).  She will thus become the wind beneath our wings and, as such, the one true consolation that lasts.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.