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May 22, 2023Dear Brothers and Sisters:
May brings with it many experiences of life that are full of meaning and cause for celebration in its special occasions and events that bring people together to celebrate family, faith, achievement, and the goodness of those whose love and kindness has helped us become the person we are. This month I have already been to a First Communion, have been invited to two of my nieces’ graduations, and have celebrated my first Mother’s Day since my mother’s death about a year ago. And perhaps like you and countless others, I am also looking forward to Memorial Day and to the ‘unofficial’ beginning of summer!
Reflecting on these May experiences has helped me to appreciate the reality of change and transition in all our lives. At the First Communion, joyous and wonderful as it was to be sure, little Joe’s mother said, “It seems like it was just yesterday that he was born, and we were bringing him home.” My sister Helen’s comment, “Oh gosh, I can’t believe Carolyn is graduating from college, I will never forget her first day of school,” echoed a similar sentiment. Both comments brought home to me that even happy and joyous occasions are also times of change and transition. The infant has become the young child, and the young child has become the college graduate going into the world!
Mother’s Day this year was also the first anniversary of my “Ma’s” death. It was a tender day of grateful and loving remembering with my siblings, our hearts well aware of how the loss of our mother has been a huge transition for all of us. And even though Memorial Day transitions us from spring into summer with cookouts, pool parties, and beach trips, it is also a holiday when we celebrate and honor the memory of those who lost their lives in service to the country for our freedoms and our future as a nation. We fittingly honor their service and sacrifice with parades and grateful acknowledgement. Who of us hasn’t known change and transition in our life through the death of a loved one?
My reflecting on the reality of change this month has helped me to become more conscious that I am in the midst of my own transition in my new ministry as Provincial. I began this ministry on March 13 after having served in retreat ministry at San Alfonso Retreat House for seven and a half years. The change from retreat work to the ministry of leadership has involved me having to end my ministry as retreat director, clean up, pack up, and move to my new home and office in Washington, D.C. While I am nowhere near being settled in, and often feel ‘betwixt and between’ being anxious and overwhelmed on the one hand, while energized and excited on the other in this new place of home and ministry, I have been busy learning more about the many responsibilities of my new assignment and am gradually coming to appreciate more fully all that is involved in doing it well and with due diligence.
These past few months of my own life have taught me a thing or two about change and transition. I share them with you with a hope and a prayer that they may be of some help to you in whatever transition you are in within your own life. I have come to appreciate that:
1. Transitions take time…so be patient in whatever transitions you are facing in your life.
2. Transitions need talk...the more I speak about my experience of change, the freer I am to embrace it and not be overwhelmed by it.
3. Transitions need truth…transitions are not easy, sometimes challenging, and often difficult, and this reality, when present, needs to be owned rather than denied or sugar coated.
4. Transitions need tenderness…the inner dispositions of kindness, compassion, and forgiveness towards self and others quell the rough edges that surface within us in times of transition.
5. Transitions need trust…God who has seen us through our past transitions is no less present to us in the ones we are in right now.
Change does not just happen in May! Welcomed or unwelcomed, change is a constant throughout every age and season of our lives. As a people of faith may we not fear it, but rather embrace our transitions with hope and trust in the goodness of God who is with us wherever we go.
Blessings and all the best to you in your transitions and many thanks for your prayers and support of our community. May our Mother of Perpetual Help bring us hope and courage to be grateful for all that has been and hopeful for all that is yet to be!
John Collins, C.Ss.R.
Provincial Superior of the Redemptorists of the Baltimore Province
