Finding God 8 October 2010

Finding God 8 October 2010

8 October 2010 3 Comments

~ by Fr. Jack Bentz, SJ

They say it all began with a cannonball. Saint Ignatius was soldiering along and Wham! a cannonball finally woke him up. Well, it first laid him low and then God was able to get to him. He had a conversion of heart and the rest is the history of the Jesuits. So where is my cannonball? Have you been hit by one?

The size of the hammer God uses to wake us is relative to the hardness of the heart God is trying to break open. Cannonball = very hard heart. Lovely sunset = very, very soft heart. God used a cannonball for Ignatius but used friendship to get to St. Francis Xavier and Peter Faber. Ignatius was their friend during college and that did it. They ended up giving their lives for Christ out of an experience of friendship with someone who had been hit by a cannonball. What is God using to wake you up? One thing seems to be certain– if we keep ignoring sunsets, friendships, good books, and prayer, God will use stronger methods. We will not like it but God does what it takes.

I doubt Ignatius’ first thought upon being hit by the cannonball was “Ah, yes, this must be dear old God waking me up.” Doubtful. It took a long time for him to see God’s fingerprints on that cannonball. If God can use a cannon God can use disappointment, illness, romantic disasters, death of parents, being fired from a job, and depression to wake us up. Wake us up and force the question of what are we doing with our lives. Obviously, for Ignatius, life as a soldier was over and his life as a companion of Jesus began. What about you? Are you paying attention to God in your life or is there a cannonball headed your direction? How long will it take for you to let God fill you? What will it take?

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3 Comments »

Jack said:

You, of course, make a good point. I would expect nothing less. Thanks for adding to the conversation.

[Reply]

# 29 October 2010 at 6:28 pm

Barb Lulay Bryan said:

I’m going to sort of disagree with you. I don’t know that the cannonball that hit Ignatius had God’s fingerprints on it. I think it was only the awakening that had God’s fingerprints on it. So why does it seem that God uses cannonballs, when sunsets do not wake us up? I think that you are asleep to what God says, you will sleep through anything. If you ignore the call to wake up, well, eventually yes, you’re going to get hit by a cannonball. You won’t hear God say “DUCK!” that’s for sure. But when you are listening, then “though a thousand fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, near you it shall not come.” That doesn’t mean that being awake will always keep you out of harm’s way. It means you will never ever be hit without some good coming of it. If you are faithful, whatever you go through will bear fruit.

I don’t think this is splitting hairs. The Cross did not have God’s fingerprints on it, after all. The Cross had our fingerprints on it. It is the Resurrection that had God’s fingerprints on it, and that because Jesus was awake to how to be faithful to the Will of God when we nailed him to the Cross. It is not the cannon ball that saves us, then, but God that saves us when we awaken and arise at the sound of God’s voice. That is the message of the Cross: If we listen and remain faithful to what we hear, God can take the worst thing in the world and make it into the best thing in the world. Otherwise, we’re going to take it in the head for nothing, and keep on sleeping.

[Reply]

Kyle Reply:
October 22nd, 2010 at 6:25 pm

I think Fr. Bentz mainly meant that God will speak to us in our most relative realm. If you are a man of war and go to battle, he might have to take you down a few pegs with a cannon ball, but not in the typical flat out “you were just hit with a cannon ball” manner. In the “you now have a lot of time laid up in bed to think about what exactly it is that you have been doing.” Much like the beginning of The Confessions by Saint Augustine when he starts off by explaining that God is all encompassing. God is everywhere, irregardless of wether we like it or not. So, point being, even when we confuse ourselves so far as to go to war and wage against others, God is still there; in us, as a people, and individual. Some people need to be told to move, some people need to be hit, and others, they will wake up later.

And to those who go on sleeping, God has given us great free will.

Also remember that the cross was made of wood. God has given us all potential, and I don’t mean all as in every one of us, because that is true as well. But by all I mean that He has given us potential within its whole. All of it. It’s all about personally acknowledging the ways in which God stirs in us.

[Reply]

# 21 October 2010 at 2:55 am