See Jesus in Ourselves

Frank, the wise elderly priest, continues to tell us how he’s come to see Jesus in his life:

One of my favorite blessings as a priest came with the honor of listening to people’s confessions. You might be surprised at that, but sharing such a sacramental moment with anyone is a gift. Sometimes people come in during confessional hours and you can tell they want to get in and out as quickly as possible. But most people, once they’ve said what they need to say, are open to the many graces God wants to shower on them. And the people who make an appointment for confession off-hours are often hungry for such grace and any spiritual counseling that I’m moved to offer.

Many people come to the confessional weighed down by guilt and feeling very bad about themselves. I listen, not for my own knowledge, but as a conduit connecting God and the parishioner. Their words, both the penitent’s and God’s, flow through me, and I frequently am amazed at how the Spirit directs my response to them. You’d think after so many years as a priest I’d be used to it, but I still often wonder, did I just say that? Where did that come from? It certainly isn’t my own wisdom, but that of the Spirit. Being used that way, for the healing of a sorrowful soul, is one of the greatest gifts of the priesthood!

I don’t want the penitent to leave while weighed down by what they’ve just told me. I want them to realize what a blessed child of God they are, so there’s a question I’ve always loved asking people before I give them their penance and send them on their way.

I say, “Tell me when you’ve been most like Jesus.” Well, usually they start telling me when they’ve been the least like Him. So, I interrupt and say again, “Tell me when you’ve been most like Him.”

I hear quite humbling answers.

One woman said, “When I overlook my husband’s little irritating idiosyncrasies and just love him as he is.”

Another said, “When I’m up in the middle of the night with my infant, and she’s crying, and I’m exhausted but I cuddle her and coo to her and rock her until she falls asleep. I think that’s what Jesus must long to do with us when we aren’t behaving. So often we misbehave because we are tired or hungry or don’t feel loved. But He’s right there holding us and loving us through the hard times.”

So much truth rests in that wise young woman’s words. But women aren’t the only ones who are Christ-like. One man told me, “My joints hurt most of the time. I’ve had severe arthritis for years, but I try not to complain. I think about Jesus and how He suffered for me, and I thank Him, and then the pain doesn’t seem intolerable.”

Another man had a hard time letting go of all the times he’d missed the mark. I had to repeat my question several times, but finally he looked up at me with tears in his eyes and said, “I’m divorced. I didn’t want it, but I am, and sadly, my ex-wife is very angry with me, so she belittles me in front of the kids. I’m most like Jesus when I resist the temptation to do the same about her. He never returned anything but good for evil. I try to remind myself of that, and I try to tell the kids about her good qualities. I don’t want them to think that whatever part of them comes from her isn’t anything but wonderful.”

The elderly man paused and looked at Pedra, who had been recording his words in shorthand as quickly as he spoke.

“How about you, Pedra,” he asked, “when have you been most like Jesus?”

Pedra looked up from her notepad, then looked down again, not wanting to meet Frank’s gaze. She could feel her cheeks burn, and her first thoughts were all the ways she wasn’t like Jesus at all. Frank let her relax into his silence and simply waited. Finally, she said, “I’m most like Jesus when I’m in this room, listening to your stories, and completely enjoying being with you. I hope He enjoys being with me, but I am absolutely sure He enjoys being with you, Frank.”

“Pedra,” Frank answered, “you have no idea how wonderful you are. And I don’t have much time left to convince you. But you are. You make me feel like there’s nowhere else you’d rather be. That’s a remarkable gift of friendship. And I promise you, Jesus loves being with you, listening to you confide in Him, sharing your friendship. He loves you, Pedra, just the way you are right now. He doesn’t need you to be perfect. He’ll aways encourage us to be better, but He also delights in who we are right now.”

She looked at the good man through tears in her eyes.

“Go home,” he said. “Talk to God. Listen to Him. Let Him show you all the ways you are wonderful.”

Betty here. What more can I say? Go home. Talk to God. Listen to Him. Let Him show you all the ways you are wonderful. He loves you, just the way you are right now. He doesn’t need you to be perfect. He’ll aways encourage us to be better, but He also delights in how we are right now.

See Jesus in yourself.

See Jesus in Service

3 See Jesus – in Service

In our story about Frank, he begins to meet Jesus in others as he serves them. He tells Pedra, who is taking his story down in shorthand:

As I grew to be a teen, I followed the precepts of the Church, obeyed the commandments, even Jesus’ command to “love others as I have loved you.” I knew that could mean dying for others. I prayed I could have that kind of courage. But it also meant living for others, which required its own kind of bravery.

Our Youth Group focused on service to others. At first it felt awkward, going to help people. I thought they might be embarrassed by the contrast between their need and our privileged lives, but most of them were truly grateful. We sorted clothes at a local St. Vincent de Paul and were encouraged to converse with those who shopped there. We ran food drives in our neighborhoods. Later we distributed groceries to shelves at the local food bank or boxed up supplies to be delivered to families. We helped manage the lines of people indoors, or the cars outdoors, as people drove up trying to help their food budget reach the end of the month.

Other times we visited nursing homes for the elderly, and we’d sing some old-time songs or simply spread out and visit with the residents. I learned to admire the kind people who worked in the homes every day, whether cleaning up after accidents, helping with showers, or being cheerful and patient when the residents weren’t. Some folks there felt forgotten and abandoned and their hurt could turn to anger. Once, though, I saw one of the crankiest old men turn into a baby-talking cuddler when a therapy dog nudged his hand for a pet. I think we all need a little nudge out of our self-pity occasionally.

In December we would arrange and throw a Christmas party for foster kids. We’d each pick a toy for someone whose name we’d drawn, but we’d also raised money so each child could take home a suitcase or duffle bag for the meager possessions that travelled with them from home to home. Seeing those kids and hearing some of their stories sure made me grateful for my parents. We didn’t have a lot of money, but we did have lots of love. I grew up with a sense of security that those kids might not ever have known. I still pray for foster kids and that truly good people will be inspired to become foster parents.

Later, after my first year of college, one of my professors found me a part-time job at a homeless shelter. I did some cleaning and cooking, but mostly I listened to stories and offered friendship to the friendless. Like Mary and Joseph who fled to Egypt with their newborn Son, some of the guests were immigrants. Some were down on their luck and had lost their homes. Some were addicted to drugs or alcohol or both. But they all needed to be listened to, to be treated with dignity, to be fed and clothed and sheltered. Those people taught me so much. I learned how little in life is really necessary; how relationship is everything. I learned how Jesus was able to hug the lepers. These folks were just as outcast as lepers, so I figured they were His people. It wasn’t always easy, but I occasionally succeeded at seeing Jesus in them.

One man came in every day for the noon meal. He always wore a tee shirt and jeans, much like most of the men there, but he looked more clean-cut than others. It took me a couple of weeks working there to notice that he moved around the diners chatting here and there, and occasionally took one or another of them into a separate room. I asked my supervisor about it, and he said, “Oh, you must mean Doc. He comes to bandage a blister, offer an antibiotic when something is infected, or encourage a person to go to the free health clinic for more care. I even saw him stitch up a knife wound once.”

I asked if he really was a doctor. My boss shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows,” he said. “But he knows his stuff. He never asks for anything more than his lunch, and the people trust him. He’s one of the good guys.”

Those words made me want someone to say that about me someday. “He’s one of the good guys.” Or even more to the point, I wanted to hear God say, on my judgment day, “Well done, you good and faithful servant. What you did for the least of these, you did for Me.”

Betty here: We all want to hear those words on our own judgment day, when we will see God face to face. Whether through service to the poorest of the poor, to our family and friends, or to the people God places in our lives, whatever we do for the least of these, we do for Him.

See Jesus – In Others

       Welcome, or welcome back to these 4-minute posts written to help us grow.  I usually set my fiction writing aside during Lent, but this year, I will illustrate one aspect of “seeing Jesus” with excerpts from my work-in-progress novel, Jesus’ Joy. In the story, we meet a terminally ill, elderly patient who is dictating stories of his life that tell how he came to see Jesus. He begins when he was a young boy visited by the Virgin Mary in a dream.

When I was seven, I awoke one night with a start. A strange woman stood at the foot of my bed. She smiled at me, and then I wasn’t afraid. Such a sweet smile couldn’t mean anyone any harm. A blue scarf covered most of her hair, and she wore a blue top and white pants, all very loose and flowy.      “Frank,” she said.      I nodded, still not quite convinced this was real, or whether this was a stranger I wasn’t supposed to talk to.      “Frank, you are a very lucky boy. Very blessed. You will see my son Jesus soon! He won’t look like you expect, but know He loves you very much.” Then I blinked, and she was gone.      What did she mean, soon? This was definitely a mama question. I found my mother in the kitchen, getting our lunches ready for the next day, and told her what had happened. Mama was a calm person, not upset very easily, but she looked worried, or maybe scared. “You must have had a very realistic dream,” she said. She took me to the couch and pulled me onto her lap. “Tell me about it again,” she said, and I did. While I talked, her face drained color to a kind of whitish grey.      Mama took a deep breath, and her face took on more color. “I know what this is,” she said. “You’ve been preparing to make your First Communion. Either you dreamed about meeting Jesus in this very special way”—I started to protest that it couldn’t have been a dream—“or,” she quickly added, “maybe the Virgin Mary really did come to remind you how blessed you are to be receiving Him soon into your body and soul.”      Ten days later I knelt in church with my Communion class, waiting for the time to receive Jesus into my heart. I looked across the aisle at others in my class and saw my friend Evan, who was aglow with a beam of sunlight from the stained-glass window. Evan was darker than me, and I had thought before about how Jesus, as a boy, might have looked like this friend. But now, with the light making his hair shine like a halo, I remembered Mary telling me I would see her Son soon. Was this what she meant? Evan was a nice kid, but he wasn’t Jesus. At least I didn’t think he was. Could Jesus be one of my classmates?      After the lector had read from the Old Testament and the choir had sung the responsorial psalm, I looked again at Evan, but the light beam had moved. Now it was illuminating the girl next to Evan, named Marcie. Marcie’s hair glowed like a halo, too, and in her white dress and veil she looked very angelic, but I knew differently. She was a bully, and I had learned to keep a good distance from her to avoid her teasing and mocking. No, the light beam definitely wasn’t showing me who Jesus was, if that’s what it was trying to do.      I drew my attention back to the lector, who had finished the second reading, taken from the New Testament parts that weren’t the Gospels. I felt bad for letting my mind wander. This was a very important day.      When it was my turn to receive, I saw and tasted bread and wine, but my faith eyes knew I had received Jesus. I’d be able to have Communion from now on, taking Jesus into my heart and body. I’d have Jesus inside me. That gave me a new thought. So would everyone in my class, even Marcie. I wouldn’t actually see Jesus when I looked at them, but Jesus would be there, inside each of them. Inside of me, too. My heart surged a beat at that thought. I wanted to keep Jesus inside me always. I wanted to remember that Jesus was inside everyone else, too. I’d need to remember to use my faith eyes to see Jesus in people.      Had I seen Jesus, like Mary told me I would? I watched the rest of the church file up to receive Communion. When the procession to the altar had ended, I looked across the aisle and saw Marcie smiling with her eyes closed. Jesus was inside her. Evan was grinning as he looked up at a statue. Jesus was inside him. Most of my classmates were smiling.      I wondered why I hadn’t seen any of the adults smile. Didn’t they realize what a gift they’d been given? Maybe it was hard to remember how special Communion is since they could do it every week, or even every day. That was another thing I told myself I’d have to remember when I grew up, to smile after Communion because God is inside me, and God loves me deeply. Jesus loves everyone enough to give them a chance to be one with Him in such a simple but deep way.      That was the day I began trying to see Jesus in everyone.        Betty here again. Let’s try, like Frank, to see Jesus in everyone around us. Not just the Evans that look like Jesus might have, but also the Marcies, who require more effort as we look beyond their behavior to the inner person who might be striking out from woundedness.   May God bless your week.