On the day that the mother of three young boys was told she was seriously ill, she sat by the river and wrote the following lines:

The river flows eternally, just as your spirit is flowing through me.

At first just a ripple on the surface of my being, like the touch of gentle rain on my skin.

Life continues and the ripple begins to fade, but you are growing beneath the surface in the depth of my soul.

There is no great surge of energy or overpowering event, just a gradual beautiful feeling of coming home to be with you.

Since that day, there have been many months of treatment both in and out of hospital, and of physical and emotional pain. There have been times when she has felt she has ‘been no use to anybody’ and worried about ‘letting the boys down’.

But when she went for a scan, which was going to take an hour, she took along a tape on the prayer of stillness. ‘I enjoyed the tape. It was just peaceful. I didn’t pray,’ she told me some time later. ‘It was amazing. I listened more and more over the next few days and felt at peace with my situation. But why, I wondered, when I am feeling so angry?’

This introduction to the prayer of silent waiting started her on a spiritual journey which ‘has been truly life-changing’. And the young mum described some of her journey for me.

She remembers, in early childhood, a feeling of comfort and warmth when at Mass, or thinking about Jesus, and being drawn to attending the service of Benediction with her father. ‘I remember vividly the feeling of being special and feeling that everyone was special and cherished,’ she wrote in her email.

‘But as I grew older, the God and the faith I fell in love with at the age of six grew further and further away. God became a fearful figure who governed and watched everything and would punish us, either in this life or the next, for any misdemeanour. The God I was being taught about became unrecognizable.

‘I now believe the Jesus I experienced at the age of six to be the same loving Jesus as Augustine discovered. He offers us love, unconditional love. We can’t blame him when life seems hard. What we do with the love we receive from God can protect us not from suffering but from how that suffering affects us and those we love.

‘At one stage in my life the idea that Jesus is always with me terrified me, as if he was waiting to catch me out. But now the awareness that Jesus is always with me, not to punish or chastise me but to share in my happiness and sadness like a best friend, brings me nothing but comfort.’

An extract from Finding Your Hidden Treasure

© 2010 Benignus O’Rourke OSA

Published by Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd

© Photo: Ian Wilson OSA

Get the book: www.theaugustinians.org