In the issue of Echo Jesuits in autumn 2020, Jean-Luc Fabre, a Jesuit priest, then editor-in-chief of Christus magazine, offers us a method to reread our day. Like the gardener who takes care of his garden, we are invited to visit it. This is another way of living the covenant prayer.
Joy
I take the time to ask myself, I become aware of where I am and I put myself in the presence of the Lord…I let the "garden of my day" come back and unfold, asking the Lord to make me particularly attentive to the young shoots, to what has brought me life, joy…
Wake up, Wind from the North! Come on, South Wind! Breath on my garden and its aromas will exhale! Let him enter his garden, my beloved, eat the delicious fruits – Songs of Songs 4, 16
Care
I take the time to admire this garden. I observe the growth of new shoots, of the flower, of the fruit that blooms; the branch or grass that takes up too much space. I do not hesitate to prune the branch, to cut the greedy, to remove what has dried or faded. I do it carefully, slowly and lovingly. I am attentive to the gardening session the day before.
After this time of walking in the garden of my day, I close the door with a feeling of gratitude and confidence towards the Gardener of my heart.
Deep down, work and forecasting don't exhaust the whole of my day. I know this toil doesn't say the whole thing about my life. I thus feel in myself the spiritual struggle between these two worlds, that of the modeled, the calculated, the expected as well as that of discovery, trial and error and dialogue. I feel that I have to be on both worlds, but that real life is about knowing how to slow down, how to settle down, to enter into dialogue. (JLF)
