Faith Learned, Faith Lived: Surprised by Joy from a Teacher's "Yes"

The Year of Faith begins on October 11th and goes through November 24, 2013. There are many things that we can do during this time, but the most important is to take time to reflect on our lives and where we can discover God's presence in our lives. I look at it as a retreat which we are on for a year. It is a different type of retreat in that we do not go away, but that we look at our daily lives. I would suggest that we ask one question in this journey. Where is God in our lives?

I am writing a faith blog during this year in which I will take stories from the ACE community and explore where God is in the story of a member of the community and connecting it to the gospel.

I was talking with an ACE teacher recently who shared a story. She had been accepted into the ACE program and a similar program at another school. She made the decision to join ACE because she was going to teach Spanish K through 8, and that was what she wanted to do. She came to Notre Dame for ACE summer and, near the end, she received some news that was upsetting. Her principal needed her to teach fourth grade—and not Spanish. You can imagine how she felt. She felt angry, disappointed, and betrayed, and she considered quitting because she was not going to do what she wanted to do. She decided, through the encouragement of her mother, to accept the new assignment, although she was not happy.

I was talking with her a year later and she told me that she could not be happier teaching fourth grade. She loved her students last year, and this year as well. She felt that it was very important to have faced this decision and to have been able to say "yes."

If we look at this story from the perspective of faith, we can see something of Mary's "yes" to become the mother of Jesus. It was not what Mary expected, but she is a role model for facing questions and doing the will of God.

As you think about your life, what challenge have you faced and how do you look at it as an invitation to follow Christ more closely? Let us pray that we can discover in our stories a connection to doing what God is calling us to do. Through our "yes," we can say like Mary, "my soul proclaims the greatness of God."

May God bless you in this Year of Faith.