Spiritual Director

Wild Geese

          “Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings.” That line comes from the song, “My Favorite Things,” from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, The Sound of Music. I was reminded of that one evening in an expansive field years ago. Just before a blazing October sun slipped below the horizon, a huge flock of Canada geese on their way south peeled off from flight row by row to land amidst the corn stalks. You have to admit that that was a beautiful image. To quote Oscar Hammerstein’s lyrics: “These are a few of my favorite things.”

          Our Cursillo Movement invites us to consider our “favorite things” in the Ideal Talk. We are asked to reflect on how we spend our time, how we spend our money, and what we think about through the day. It is a way of thinking through what truly is our ideal.

          For this Jesus has a suggestion. He proposes that we choose the ideal of living his way. Consider this: Jesus once fed a huge crowd gathered to hear him, when a boy in the group presented no more than a basket of five barley loaves and two fish. Yet when the people followed him, he told them that they were still only looking for more material food. What they really needed was the spiritual food that only he could provide. They needed to be fed by his teaching, and so he said:

I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.   

   John 6:35

          If you just observe and make note of the lifestyles and addictions of actors and performers, the values of script writers on TV, and the moral principles of national politicians, you will see many people starving spiritually, because they display no standards beyond their own pleasure, self-interest, or political gain. And if we adopt their standards, we are fools.

          But if we want to be wise, if we want to fill the deepest hunger of the human race, the hunger for love and meaning in life, then we only need to turn to Jesus. When was the last time you really looked at your life and handed all your needs and concerns over to him?             Fr. Bill Loveless