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 Church

Seeing Jesus can result from observing Him in others like we considered last week. However, He draws us to Himself through many different means. Moving closer to Him is a matter of deepening relationships as we love people more, but also as we get to know Jesus better in His Church, through His Word, through Prayer, and through Community. Our protagonist, Frank, tells us more:

As a kid, I enjoyed reading the New Testament. Our Lady had told me I’d meet her Son, and I wanted to be ready. At first, I used a child’s book of stories about Jesus, but eventually a simplified Bible, and before long, a regular Bible. I liked the Jesus I met there. As a child, He must have been a deep thinker, and I could relate to that. I loved how He sat and listened to the elders at the temple and asked questions with understanding, even at twelve. He was kind and gentle with people, but could be passionate, like when money lenders misused His Father’s temple. I was especially intrigued by His healing miracles. I thought that healing might be just about the best of gifts to be given, to be able to cure people of their brokenness and pain. As I learned about Him from reading, I was drawn to Him, and began talking to Him as a friend.

I still do. I highly recommend it!

Above all, I strove to build a real relationship with Jesus by spending time with Him, whether in front of the Blessed Sacrament in adoration, in conversation with Him in prayer, or through little love offerings by way of sacrifices. A favorite author of mine, Matthew Kelly, once wrote that relationships deepen when we spend carefree timelessness with each other. The same is true spiritually. We grow closer to Jesus by spending time with Him.

But He doesn’t always call us to solitude. He can also meet us in Community. On my first night in Youth Group as a high school freshman, one of the seniors called for our attention. He invited us to take our seats and introduced us to the teen leaders who were other seniors like himself. A handful of adults supervised but allowed the teens to do most of the interacting. A young man and a young woman each gave a short talk about how the group had helped them deepen their faith or feel supported through hard times.

Excitement made me grin. I’d been hoping for a place where I could talk among friends about our faith. I wanted to grow closer to Jesus, but not feel like I was weird for that desire. Our Youth Group didn’t only talk. Much of our time was spent in service, putting our faith into practice.

That was when I first learned about the value of belonging to a community with shared beliefs.

Many years later, I was made pastor of my own parish, and I loved my flock dearly. I saw Jesus within them and through our shared worshipping. I felt Him reaching out to them. I felt tenderly toward the man who struck his chest gently each time Jesus’ name was read. Or the woman who sat in the front pew so that her four young children could see well, though tending to them probably meant she didn’t get to pray much herself. Of course, some folks were harder to see Jesus in. I listened to complaints about Mass times, or the music, or what the lectors wore. Some folks disagreed passionately about every topic brought up at the Parish Council meetings. The Church isn’t a collection of perfect people. It’s a community of imperfect folks who struggle together to grow closer to each other and to God.

I loved officiating at weddings, watching the bride and groom gaze into each other’s eyes, though their happiness in being joined as one emphasized how very alone a priest can be. Just when I was feeling especially sorry for myself, some sweet family would invite me to dinner. The children would play their newest pieces on the piano, or sing for me, or ask me to join them in a board game, and I’d drive home that night feeling so thankful. God had reminded me that I wasn’t alone, and that He had me, and all His children, under His wing.

Betty here again.

The early Covid precautions kept us from worshipping with our communities in our churches. It was certainly easier to attend Mass in our living rooms, but something was missing. Don’t you agree? In those first early months, we couldn’t receive Communion, and we couldn’t share community.

Some people say they can stay close to God without community, but Jesus must have thought worshipping together was important, since He instituted the Church. I think He knew we would need each other’s support through the hard times. We need the help of others as we try to raise our children to know Him. We need the witness of others when we profess our vows as a couple, baptize our children, or introduce them to the sacraments. And we certainly need the support of friends when we experience grief from the loss of a loved one. Clergy and lay ministers give us examples of how to lead our lives when they’ve gone through the challenges we face, or when they share a homily that makes us consider new directions. Those same leaders need our participation to perform works of mercy through food drives, soup kitchens, charity collections, outreach to the homeless, or support for our seniors.

We see Jesus in our churches when we study His Word, join in prayer, and reach out to help others.

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.