Graduation and transition

This is the end of term 1. Last night was the graduation Mass and dinner for a dozen of the final year students who have taken between 3 and 6 years to complete the course. It was a touching evening, seeing the bonds which that cohort had developed, and wondering ahead to how that might be my group in two years' time. The testimonies were powerful, and always came back to the same theme of spiritual growth and personal transformation. One man spoke about the event in Mark 2 when a paralysed man's friends lower him through the roof to get to Jesus. He said that of the hundred times he's read or thought of that account, he always saw himself as the healthy helpers, not the man on the mat, until coming to do this course, and discovering all the healing and forgiveness and growth that God wanted to do in him. A powerful night.

So this weekend many of the American students will leave, having finished the first term. The overseas students like myself, including from Vietnam, Hong Kong, Nigeria and Uganda are staying on for a second term, and a new group will arrive over the weekend for the second term. I have a sense of anticipation of who I might meet. It seems remarkable that so much has happened, and such a depth of relationships has been possible with people in just four weeks by virtue of studying, praying and eating together, and to think that there can be even more of the same to come.

Comments

  1. Dominic10 July 2016 at 22:11

    At the time when we surrender all to God, he asks us for something that we don't want to surrender. If we do that is when we transform from the friend lowering the mat to the man on the mat.
    Thanks Jim, it's been great to follow your journey so far.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown29 July 2016 at 13:25

    Here, here Dom, well said. Good on you Jim, well done and it is great to follow your journey.

    ReplyDelete

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