Festina lente

“Festina lente,” Latin for “make haste slowly,” is one of those phrases like Carpe Diem that stays with you even if you don’t really know Latin. For this moment, it speaks directly to where I am. It’s a very busy week, and I’m applying a slow, methodical practice of reflection to share with you. This will be brief, but sometimes brevity is exactly what we need because it is better than nothing at all.

I had a quiet nudge this week to look more closely at the human condition and our relationship with God. With every sermon I prepare, I am the first one to receive it. My sermons are moments of receiving a spiritual message, and they are also meant to help us look deeper and guide us in daily living. We often move through life on the surface of things, speaking familiar words of faith that have lost their depth because they begin to sound like clichés or platitudes.

There is a book I reach for in those times when I need to go deeper: The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis. Chapter 1 speaks of following Christ, a call so central that we hear it everywhere. But sometimes a word repeated too often becomes a seed scattered on hard ground.

So, I turned to Chapter 2, where Kempis invites us to begin not with lofty ideals but with the inner life. He asks us to examine our authentic motives, the real reasons behind our choices, our service, even our prayers. It’s uncomfortable work because it reveals how easily we seek approval, comfort, or control instead of God.

But this honesty is not meant to shame. It is meant to prepare.

When we dare to look at our motives without defensiveness, we soften the soil of the heart. We make space for God to plant something real, something that can take root. Kempis reminds us that God meets us in truth, not performance. And truth begins with the courage to say: Lord, show me what drives me, and guide me in your compassionate love to reshape and transform me into good soil to receive your seed.

My quiet nudge reminded me that God often uses ordinary moments to invite us into extraordinary honesty. I believe this is where, “with God’s help,” the promise at the heart of our Baptismal Covenant, fulfills its oath. And perhaps this is where transformation truly begins, not in grand declarations like Carpe Diem, but in Festina lente: the quiet willingness to see ourselves clearly and honestly, and to let God work in the depths.