A meditation on the tension of transition

The summer is a time of transition—graduations, weddings, funerals, moving houses, new pastoral assignments. These are times of excitement and anticipation—meeting new people, taking the next step, starting a new life. But I want to take a moment to just say honestly: transitions are hard. No matter what from, there’s an element of saying goodbye to something familiar, something we’ve grown to know and, most likely, to love. In short, we have to leave a home. And no matter where to the transition is leading, there’s an element of the unknown, of mystery, that can be heavy and anxiety-inducing. My family and I, having three graduations this spring, have felt this very deeply. I’d like to share a few things I’ve gleaned from living in the tension of “leaving home” several times over the last few years. 

Those who know me know that leaving home to come to seminary was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. It felt like my heart was being torn apart—and it was. Now, after four years at St. Gregory the Great Seminary, the place I dreaded going to, had become a place I dreaded leaving. It had become another home. A few months later, I found myself stuck in what my dad calls a “funk.” Everything felt challenging, my emotions were absent, my mind cloudy and stressed, even though I had one of the easiest schedules I’ve ever had. After a while of frustration and trying harder, I took a step back to figure out what was going on. Then I realized: I miss St. Greg’s. I miss home. During graduation, everything was so busy I didn’t get a chance to mourn the loss of my brothers and fathers I had come to love and trust. 

I realized I had begun to feel and act like a spiritual orphan. It felt like, because I’d left St. Greg’s, I couldn’t rely on those relationships anymore. But I hadn’t moved into St. Paul Seminary yet, so I didn’t have new relationships to fill the gap. I was mad at God, but too scared to tell him how I felt. So I internalized everything and tried to survive by myself. This is the tension of transition. 

The first thing that really helped was telling God exactly how I felt. One night during my silent retreat, I yelled at him for 45 minutes—about all the pain he was asking me to go through, all the times I felt like he wasn’t there for me. How did he react? He started bringing to mind all the memories with my brothers at St. Greg’s, the relationships I had come to cherish deep in my heart. I was finally able to feel the joy and sorrow of knowing and leaving such a blessed home. I saw, in my imagination, the Father reaching out and giving my raw heart back to me—childlike and vulnerable, freed from all the walls I had put up in self-protection. He said with a tender smile, “Kade, here is your heart back, thank you for entrusting it to me.” I’ve kept relating my heart to him in brutal, childlike honesty, because in any pain I’m going through, he has been there first. 

Second, I started relating my sorrow to those around me—first to the other seminarians I’m spending my summer with. Then I started to call the seminarians I’d left, and my heart rejoiced to hear their voices again. I went back to St. Greg’s and talked to the formator I’ve come to trust with everything. That was a very healing experience. It showed me I didn’t have to let go of them completely. It won’t be the same as it was—and that’s hard to accept—but they’re always open to calling when I need to open my heart to someone. 

Leaving home, moving on, saying goodbye—it’s not final. A phrase that has often come to mind during transition is “someday for all eternity.” God is ever-present to our mourning. Go to him and those he has given to you for comfort. Recently, while feeling alone, I sat with the 12-year-old Jesus in the Temple, crying because he was without Mary and Joseph, yet knowing he had to be there because it was his Father’s will. Jesus had been there first. He felt my pain. While mourning the passing of a loved one or preparing to leave someone behind, it can help to sit beside the deathbed of Joseph with Mary and Jesus and let their love—and their shared pain—penetrate your own soul. In the agony of leaving behind friends, or whatever it is that you’re being asked to surrender, cry with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Through the pain of Good Friday, and the bitter silence and solitude of Holy Saturday, comes the glorious, eternal joy of the Resurrection. “Someday for all eternity.”