Bishops and provincial superiors do indeed have a tough time when it comes to reshuffling responsibilities among priests and religious as this most often necessitates transfers. This is equally true of laypeople in spiritual leadership and other fields as well. A transfer is not accepted easily and may even be resisted as it will surely involve a change of place, adapting to different circumstances, a new set of people to work with etc.

A couple of months ago a senior and highly gifted priest called up to share his woes after being informed about his transfer by the bishop. He had built up a beautiful community. There was
a weekly prayer service being led by him that was being attended by a few hundred people. The local community had become quite enlightened and active. There was a lot of life around. The priest had started finding fulfilment in his priestly ministry after some years of struggle. It was at this juncture that the transfer came as a big blow that shattered all his plans. The transfer was to a very remote place with no scope for such a ministry. When I tried to explain that such a change would definitely be part of God’s plan for his own spiritual well being, he did not seem to find it very logical or acceptable.

“For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope” (Jer 29.11).

I have found this Scripture passage very comforting and reassuring in times of transition, trials and confusion. The verse is in the midst of a prophetic letter that Jeremiah sent from Israel to the Jewish exiles in Babylon. It is about the Lord’s plans to restore and heal their relationship with Him and to bring them back to a land of bountiful goodness, blessings and life. It calls for trust, prayer, love and worship. This passage is reassuring and comforting for anyone passing through difficult times.

The eagle is a symbol mentioned 38 times in the Bible. We can learn some important lessons from this majestic creation of God. An eagle mates for life and uses the same nest for life. This nest is built in a safe place, often on the edge of a sharp cliff. When the babies are born, both parents assume responsibility for their care. The parents bring food up to the nest and feed them small pieces of meat. Within 45 days they can weigh 40 times their birth weight. In Deuteronomy 32:10-11, Moses makes a comparison between God’s loving care and a mother eagle’s grooming of babies:

“He sustained him a desert land,
In a howling wilderness waste;
He shielded him, cared for him,
Guarded him as the apple of his eye,
As an eagle stirs up its nest
And hovers over its young;
As it spreads its wings, takes them up
And bears them aloft on its pinions.”

At three months the eagle gets special feathers for flying and a new learning experience begins. The mother eagle flies into the nest and begins to thrash around causing a great commotion. Eventually one of the babies will fall out of the nest and begin heading for the earth below. Never having used his wings before, he is not really sure what to do, but does a lot of flapping, while heading straight down! Just before the baby eagle hits the ground, the mother eagle flies underneath in order to catch the baby on her powerful wings and she flies him safely back to the nest. This goes on day after day until all the babies learn to fly.

We can get very comfortable in our nest

We can get very comfortable in our “nest”. This feeling of comfort could be in relation to our way of thinking, our opinions, our way of doing things, our way of carrying on a ministry etc., etc. Then when God comes and “stirs up our nest”, we really get upset and any change is viewed as negative. We are unable to look beyond the temporary discomfort and identify this as an opportunity for growth and very much as part of God’s plan for us. This could happen with priests, religious and lay people, especially when one is involved in a powerful and popular ministry.

But God stirs up our nest in order that we may leave our “comfort zones” and learn in due course how to be what God wants us to be.

Those who grumble about transfers – the change of place or the new responsibilities placed on them by their bishops, superiors or leaders – fail to see the great spiritual advantage they lose by not co-operating with the plan of God, in patience. The fact is that He never stirs up our nest without a good reason! St Paul lists perseverance and the virtue of hope as the fruits born when the Christian is able to exult in the face of hardship. “We also boast of our troubles, because we know that trouble produces endurance, endurance brings God’s approval, and his approval creates hope. This hope does not disappoint us, for God has poured His love into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit ..” (Rom 5:3-5)

Corrected for imaginary defects

The lives of saints seem very attractive and worth emulating. It will be good for us to have a close look at the lives they lived. A saint we all love and are attracted to is St Therese, the Little Flower. St Therese was treated very severely by her Superior, Mother Gonzaga. “The good God permitted that she should be very severe, even inadvertently,” said Therese. “I could not meet her without receiving some kind of reproof.” If Therese was in her presence during spiritual instructions that lasted for about an hour, most of the time would be spent in a tirade of abuse. What troubled Mother most was her complete inability to correct the imaginary defects for which Therese was reprimanded; for example, carelessness or want of zeal in her duties.

During her postulancy the Mistress of Novices sent Therese into the garden every day at 4.30pm to pluck weeds; that was a great cross to her, because she was always sure to meet Mother Gonzaga. Once Mother said to her: “What a useless child! Do you go for a walk every day?” Therese was ill-treated, not only by reproofs and humiliations, there were other trials even more painful. Mother Gonzaga, though endowed with excellent intellectual and spiritual qualities, had in her temperament grave defects and failings, which could not but have had a bad effect on those who had to live with her. From the “Summarium super virtues” of the process of Beatification of St Therese, an account of her brutal treatment can be read. Mother Gonzaga, was stated to be “psychically abnormal”, of a humour changeable in the highest degree, of morbid jealousy and was for about forty years a great cross to the community.

The cross of difficult people

However, the response of St Therese was “O my Mother, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for having spared me this suffering. Jesus knew well that his little flower needed this water of humiliations, because it was too weak to put down deep roots without it; and it is by your means that this blessing has been accorded.” Therefore, it is not without a plan (for our welfare) that some of us have “a great cross” to bear on account of “difficult people” placed as our superior or leader! Stop grumbling and start smiling!! For God has a mighty plan for you and me!! Finally St Therese died in the arms of Mother Gonzaga at the age of 24.

Therese, with her eyes lifted towards God, did once exclaim: “How happy are simple religious! Have they not got a compass needle in their Superior’s will? They are always sure of being on the right path and free from error, even, when in their eyes, the superior is mistaken. But as soon as they cease to look at the infallible needle, as soon as they depart from the direction it indicates, under the pretext of doing the will of God, their way will be obscured, and soon they will land on arid paths where the grace of God will be dried up.”

“You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples.”(Ex 19:4-5). Whenever the Lord stirs up our nest. Let us bear in mind that it is because He does not want us to be confined to the comfort of the nest. He wants us to “Grow up into mature manhood (and also womanhood) to the measure of the full stature of Jesus Christ” (Eph 4:13). May we patiently cooperate with the plan of God by leaving behind the comfort of the nest in order to soar to great heights!