{"id":1839,"date":"2016-06-11T13:28:36","date_gmt":"2016-06-11T17:28:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1839"},"modified":"2016-06-11T13:28:36","modified_gmt":"2016-06-11T17:28:36","slug":"following-gods-will","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/following-gods-will\/","title":{"rendered":"Following God’s Will"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you are a regular reader of my blog, by now you know that on June 28th,\u00a0I will end my assignment as pastor of Immaculate Conception Church<\/a> in Ithaca and move to Newark, NY where I will become the pastor of St. Michael’s Church<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This has not been an easy decision for me. \u00a0I had never been a pastor before coming to Immaculate<\/a>\u00a0and it has been challenging to oversee a parish with a church, school<\/a>. two cemeteries, a gift shop, food pantry, and various ministries. \u00a0God has led me through these four years to accomplish many tasks with the help of dedicated parishioners and the staff.<\/p>\n

In recent months, I was praying to God for guidance on how to shift from tasks that I had been dealing with that have improved and shift to working on other items that need the pastor’s assistance. \u00a0I feel like I wasn’t getting much guidance until one day I heard God say, “You have done what I wanted you to at Immaculate and now I have something else for you.” \u00a0He didn’t tell me what I was supposed to do next but I have such a deep feeling of peace and grace that I had to listen. \u00a0That is when I submitted my resignation (effective June 28th).<\/p>\n

The most difficult part here for me was not knowing where I was going but I submitted my resignation so the diocese could begin looking for my replacement. \u00a0I did this for the good of the parish.<\/p>\n

Since I did not know where I would be going, I felt lost. \u00a0A priest friend of mine suggested I use a discernment prayer by Thomas Merton. \u00a0So I googled it and found it at http:\/\/service.cua.edu\/longtermservice\/prayersfordiscernment.cfm<\/a> (it is the third prayer listed there). \u00a0It was a great prayer and really expressed what I was feeling so I used it everyday for a couple of weeks (and still do some).<\/p>\n

On that webpage you will find a couple of other discernment prayers. \u00a0The first one has also been a great help for me. \u00a0I truly believe God has a plan for each one of us. \u00a0When we feel lost, we need to ask God to reveal his plan for us. \u00a0Even when we think we are on the right track, we still need to ask God if we are doing the right thing.<\/p>\n

As I go to St. Michael’s, I don’t know what God’s plan is except that I truly believe this is where I am supposed to go. \u00a0While I would\u00a0<\/em>really like to know the whole plan now<\/em><\/strong>, I trust that God will reveal each step of the plan at the proper time and I just need to make sure I’m listening to God and not running off on my own ideas.<\/p>\n

I encourage you to look at the prayers at the link above and see if they help you to open yourself to God’s will.<\/p>\n

Peace,<\/p>\n

Fr. Jeff<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you are a regular reader of my blog, by now you know that on June 28th,\u00a0I will end my assignment as pastor of Immaculate Conception Church in Ithaca and move to Newark, NY where I will become the pastor of St. Michael’s Church. This has not been an easy decision for me. \u00a0I had …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Following God’s Will’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[181],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-tF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1839"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1840,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839\/revisions\/1840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}