May: the time of graduations, when we complete one phase of life and prepare to embark on a new one. One of the sisters recently, upon looking at a newspaper article about graduations, commented, “Interesting that we call them commencements, isn’t it? I mean, you are starting something new, but we tend to think of it more as ending something.”

Indeed, we do tend to see graduation, as well as most changes in life, as an ending — often of something cherished or special to us. Recently, one of my eighth-grade students, reflecting on his need to be more flexible with change, quoted Winston Churchill: “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to improve often.”

When I first read this quote in my student’s paper, it made me rather uncomfortable. Changing is hard enough, even when it is only occasional rather than often! But I also realized the truth in Churchill’s statement: to seek perfection in charity, I need continual conversion, and of course, that necessarily means continual change.

Sometimes personal conversion is aided by changes in circumstances of life, even those beyond our control. But even knowing that life’s changes can assist in personal conversion does not make change easy. Watching our school’s first eighth-grade class prepare to graduate, as well as preparing myself to move to a new assignment in the next academic year, has driven home to me once again how difficult change can be.

But why is change so difficult for us? I think it is because change, whether big or small, involves leaving behind something familiar and comfortable for something unknown. And since it is unknown to us, it is also not within our personal control. Thus, the very difficulty of change is also its beauty: in situations of change, it is God who is in control, not us.

At the same time, it can be a comfort to remember that we are not meant to be “forever changing.” And this is where I can freely deviate from Winston Churchill’s statement. God, who is perfection itself, is not “changing often.” In fact, God is the one who is unchanging. And we are ultimately meant to share in the constancy of God when we participate fully in His life in heaven. Thus, any change that we experience in heaven will no longer be painful but rather a joyful, peaceful growth in knowing and appreciating God as He who is infinite constantly and continually reveals Himself to us.

May our own daily experiences of change in this life lead us to trust more completely in the ever-constant God, who is always seeking for us what will lead us to Him, and who knows us and loves us better than we know and love ourselves.

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Sr. Mary Martha Becnel is a member of the Ann Arbor-based Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist.