When I was in my twenties, I met and became friends with a woman named Kate. She was fun and funny. She was a big reader and always had something new and interesting to talk about. Sometimes, when she’d been drinking, she’d talk too much and too loudly, and get into some trouble, but I liked her and accepted that just as she accepted me and my quirks.

One day she told me that she had decided to stop drinking. “If I keep drinking, I’m never going to be the person I think I’m meant to be, she said, I’ll never really be myself.” I didn’t ask her to explain. I knew what she meant. Don’t we all have an inner inkling of our true self? Maybe it is something we can’t quite articulate, or even totally understand, but something we have a sense of and know when we are straying from it?

This article is shared from the website, franciscanmissionintegration.org
Each month, reflections are offered to inspire those working in ministry in the Franciscan Spirit.