Providencia Dei

(Title Translation: The Providence of God)

Some background: The program that I'm in has an area which they call "Human Formation." This is always the hardest to explain of the areas. (The other three are Academic, Pastoral, and Spiritual Formation. Academic=classes; Pastoral=ministry placement; Spiritual=prayer, Sacraments, Spiritual Direction, etc.) Human Formation is similar to Spiritual Formation in that you sit down with a priest for an hour every couple weeks, but you don't get to choose your Formation Director. The Formation director essentially holds you accountable for growing into a better human being. During my first year, the big area I had to work on was being more comfortable socializing and maintaining friendships with a broad group.

Last year, on the other hand, I was concerned about my lack of growth. My director seemed to basically accept that I'd followed through on the requests made of me socially, was showing up where I was supposed to be, and had good grades. He wasn't asking me to stretch any more than I already had. Now, I was working on faults that I knew I had, such as grumbling, but part of the benefit of having a formation director is that he can point out flaws you don't notice. Being more social was such an area for me.

Now I've noticed that this lack of stretching during the school year served a double role in God's plan. First, it allowed me to concentrate on the other three areas. Secondly, it allowed me a respite to recover from the growth of the year before in order to be more ready to grow after the year ended, also known as now.

I'm living with my parents and working in a Church-related area. This means I "get" to explore and re-evaluate my relationship with my parents, my identity, interactions with a more diverse group (gender, age), and my work will also have interesting lessons, I'm sure. Broken people tend to gravitate to the Church, and this is true for people receiving services and those giving them. I think this summer will be a good growing experience, but it will also be hard.