When I seek results and success and quantitative justifications for my efforts, it is easy to lose site of the true reason for my actions.  When I focus on assessing effectiveness, it is easy to lose focus on God. In these last few months my own prayer has been filled with contemplation on why and how I have been called to this ministry in CLC.  A year and a half ago Anh Liem and I spoke for the first time about the possibility of my permanent commitment in CLC being made through Đồng Hành, and since then I have prayed frequently on what about CLC has grabbed hold of me so fiercely.  

This December, after six years in CLC I made my permanent commitment at the Đồng Hành  Assembly.  The God of surprises offered me one final experience of grace in my preparation for this commitment.  The candidates for commitment met for a period of prayer with Father Julian Elizande and he invited each one of us to pray about our desire to commit to Đồng Hành CLC as simply a “yes” to God’s invitation to love him.  This thirty minute time of prayer with Cha Than and the other candidates served as a reminder to me that we are not asked to produce results, but rather to be CHOSEN by God.  I experienced an awareness that night of having been called.  I did not choose God, but God choose me to be a part of the Đồng Hành CLC community in the United States.  God has called and invited me to be a blonde girl in an áo dài speaking prayers in a language whose words I do not always understand, but in a spirit that transcends languages and continents and generations. 

I reflected on the first time I experienced a completely Vietnamese Mass.  It confirmed in me this sense that the words of the Mass and the “result” of having gained something insightful from a dynamite homily were less important than my simply choosing to be with God who has already chosen to be with me.  In the last six years of my relationship with Đồng Hành, these Masses in Vietnamese have become even more sacred to me because they are opportunities for me listen more deeply to how God is communicating with me.  I am less tempted to analyze and assess and strategize implementation of the theme of the Mass in my life.  These Vietnamese Masses became moments where I was so aware of being a part of a community of thanksgiving in God’s love that I am often moved to tears of joy and reminds me of the most core elements of my faith.   

In Đồng Hành, I was invited to come without any expectations of perfection, which for me was revolutionary.  No one expected me to know every word, no one expected me to know every answer to every question, no one even expected me to know how to eat the food that was placed before me.  I was welcomed like a child, a child who knew nothing except how loved I was and how much joy being in this community brought me.   As time passed, I began sharing resources and assisting with retreats more frequently with the Đồng Hành CLC community.  My relationships with the members began to grow and I began to feel less like a visitor, and more like a part of this community.  There became little doubt in my mind that I was called not just to CLC, but specifically to Đồng Hành CLC.  It did not make sense, There was no formula for such a relationship.  All I knew was that I was so immersed in God’s love when I was in this environment that I had no choice but to embrace it.  During one of the meals at the Assembly a few Đồng Hành members were asking me if I felt at home with Đồng Hành  and another member spoke up and said “Jen does not have to FEEL at home… She is at home… she is one of us.”  This person captured the words of my heart.  When I look around at Đồng Hành  gatherings, I see first that we are Đồng Hành  and only second that I do not look like any of the other members. 

So then I ask myself… how is God inviting me in this moment to live this reality and to share this experience with others?  While I was at the Đồng Hành Assembly, I was reminded of the first time I attended a retreat at the De Paul Center.   I led my first Kairos retreat for my high school eight years ago at the DePaul Center.  Some of my closest friends were retreatants assigned to my group on this first really significant prayer experience for us in high school.  The retreat did not sit well with a particular retreatant whom I had known since our First Communion classes.  She did not get a lot out of the talks and sharings on the retreat.  I had been so sure that she would enjoy the experience.   

After that initial disappointment, I realized that God was inviting me to something deeper, and that God was teaching me through this experience as well.  I could not save her.  And she did not need me to save her.  God would speak to her in the way that would be helpful to her.  This retreat might be one part of that… but perhaps it did not need to be the “life changing” experience that we hyped it up to be.  I was filled with a sense of humility and I felt a shift in myself as I changed my energies from trying to make a positive retreat experience for each of my classmates, to focusing on praying for each of them by name, inviting God to speak to them in my talks and facilitating in whatever way God wanted to use me.  And I let it go.  I stopped focusing on what I wanted and started focusing on God.   

I have led nine Kairos retreats since then and countless other small group based retreats.  I have led several CLC youth and young adult groups and I relish in those moments where my members remind me that I do not know anything, that I am not an expert, and that God (not I) has the answers.   I pray to be humbled each day so that I do not forget and think that I am responsible for successes or for increasing numbers in CLC or increasing the amount of time other people spend in prayer.  That is not what God invites me to… God invites me simply to respond to his love for me, and today and for hopefully many days in the future, I am so blessed to do that through CLC. 

I pray to be humbled each day so that I do not forget and think that I am responsible for successes or for increasing numbers in CLC or increasing the amount of time other people spend in prayer.  That is not what God invites me to… God invites me simply to respond to his love for me ...

At the Đồng Hành Assembly, we engaged in two key experiences that confirmed this movement in my own life. The first was the discernment of new leadership for Đồng Hành CLC,  a process unlike any I had ever encountered.  Nominations had taken place prior to the Assembly, but when we arrived there were no campaign speeches about what each candidate would DO for CLC.  Instead, each candidate and their spouse were given opportunities to share with the community their own prayer and discernment about receiving a nomination. They shared their fears, their gratitude, their joys.  At the end of the Assembly, each small group was asked to cast ballots for the candidates that their local community had discerned would be best for the positions.  The entire process was incredibly prayerful and when the final discernment of leadership was complete, there was a sense that the prayers and the conversation of each one of us had gone into that decision that was ultimately made.  I was also filled with a sense of indifference, in that I trusted that whichever candidates assumed leadership roles, that they would have the support of all the others, and that each one would be guided by God in unique ways.  This discernment of leadership was much more about the process than about the results. Who is to say that if we had held a simple majority vote the same results would not have occurred… maybe they would have… maybe they would not have.  What I do know is that in this communal discernment process there was a sense of support and an experience of us missioning these leaders together from our communities.  

The second process was that of Open Space, a technology introduced at the World Assembly last summer, which invites all the participants to meet in small brainstorming groups with others who have shared interests or concerns in CLC.  Again, this process was less focused on results, and more focused on people’s desires being heard by others.  In the coming months the leadership will look at the summaries of these conversations and discern which needs are real opportunities for programs and events that will help CLC members and the community experience God’s love.  When there are so many wonderful opportunities in our faith lives, in the Church, and in CLC we must be discriminating in what areas we choose to pursue, and realistic about our energies.   Never in my life in CLC have I experienced such a spirit of openness and atmosphere of imagination, curiosity and exploration.  From the summary reports of the high school students wanting to share youth CLC with friends to the conversations about effective uses of the website, the possibilities were endless, the ideas were extensive, and the dreaming was unprecedented.    

The entire experience of the Đồng Hành Assembly invited each one of us to look at our own relationship with God and to pray together about how that experience sends us back into CLC and back into the world.  The Assembly reminded me that we are not called to lead from our perfection, but rather from our brokenness and from the entirety of who we are.   

A Scripture that has often spoken to me about my relationship with God and my ministry is that of the sinful woman who washes Jesus’ feet with her tears.  For me there are three symbols of what the woman offers Jesus- her tears to wash, her hair to dry, and her oil to anoint his feet.  In my own life I see my tears as all of my fears and imperfection, my oils as my gifts, talents, and all that God has given me, and my hair as being the most real and fundamental parts of who I am.  At the Đồng Hành Assembly I was able to appreciate the gift that my own unique experiences bring to Đồng Hành and to the whole CLC community.  I recognized my own weaknesses and the areas where I still desire to grow in my own prayer and in my own understanding of how to share this experience of CLC with others in my own life.  And I also experienced a very real sense of how the most basic elements of who I am- my light hair, my young age, my unique experiences in CLC – are all a part of who I am and what I bring with me to CLC.    

As for the language barrier, I do not see it as a barrier, but rather as a gateway.  The way I see it- I can stand on one side of the gate and everything will be safe and within my capacity to comprehend.  But if I allow myself to stand inside that gateway or even to cross completely onto the other side into a space where I know nothing and must be taught everything, then I will open myself to countless possibilities.  If I stay where it is safe, I understand 100% if what I hear, but miss 100% of the things I am not listening for.  If I move through that gateway, I understand 10% of what I hear, but that is 10% is so sacred and valuable to me.  I surrender that other 90% to God. Without my own willingness to live in that confusion, to live in that uncertainty and unknowing, I would not be able to receive the graces of the 10%.   

For me, the Assembly served as a confirmation.  It was a confirmation of my own life in CLC and in Đồng Hành , as we all as a reminder to me that my job is not to save souls.  My sole purpose is to want and to choose what brings me closer to God, to want and choose life.  And in order to do that, I must first allow myself to be CHOSEN, to surrender in that falling into God’s love.