"Let Go and Let God"

             Such a simple statement, but takes us a lifetime to learn it.When I think about it though, it seems that is what life is all about. After all, we let go of infancy to become a child, of childhood to become a teenager, then to become a young adult then to prepare for a career, a job, a vocation, a family, a community, and we build.We accumulate to support what we’ve built.

            Eventually all of that has to go, as we approach the last stage of life.

            Recently I moved from a small house of Sisters to a room at the monastery.You can be sure that a lot of letting go had to happen as I prepared for this change.But it has been a freeing experience as well!

            I let go of my dreams as a community musician as I recycled all the liturgical music I had piled up from meetings and workshops over the years. Old photos were given away. Mementos and souvenirs of travels were read over one more time and discarded.

            At some time we all have to let go of our parents and other family members as they leave this life. Someday, we’ll let go of our own last breath and join them again in eternal life. What a reunion that will be! It’s a good thing that eternity lasts forever, there are so many people I want to meet, including my favorite saints and composers, our Blessed Mother and of course, to be embraced by Jesus Himself!

            Until that day, I’m able to reconcile diminishing physical abilities, and the various tasks I was able to do so easily. I read The Grace of Aging by Kathleen Singh; Joan Chittister’s The Gift of Years is on my shelf for constant referral. These books helped me to THINK POSITIVE. But best of all is the example of the elderly Sisters I live with now: their compassion for one another, their patient endurance, their assisting one another, their cheerfulness under difficulties are such a powerful lesson for me, every day!

            And so I let go of the past, while remembering it with gratitude, and I welcome the present, the reality of old age and the blessings which I’m now discovering. Let God in and see what surprises He has for me. There is so much to learn every day!

            Sr. Mary Carol Hellmann, OSB