Readiness for Christ is not always recognized
“We believe that, just as people 2,000 years ago came in contact with God when they allowed themselves to be touched by Jesus, people today come in contact with God when they are touched by water and oil and human hands.” — Richard Rohr, OFM., and Joseph Martos
Last week, as part of the opening prayer for our monthly staff meeting, we were asked to think back to our childhood and recall a time when we had an experience of God. We were asked to then share that experience with the person next to us.
I shared the experience of sitting behind the curtain of willow branches that hung from the large tree in our backyard and observing the “life” of everything around me; the flowers, the birds, the feisty squirrels, even the grass seemed to be imbued with something sacred. I sat there often as a child, as if it were my own private chapel, and talked to God about “stuff.”
My co-worker, Leah, shared a very different kind of story, one that meant something very special to me as someone who had helped form many young people for the sacrament of confirmation.
Leah never believed her confirmation would amount to anything special. It was just something that Catholic kids her age were expected to do. She attended CCD classes as they were still called then, but her catechist seemed to spend more time enforcing discipline measures than teaching the group of 13-year-old students anything memorable about the Catholic faith.
“Maybe I knew a few prayers,” Leah acknowledged, but aside from that she remembered nothing.
On the day of confirmation, Leah, being among the shortest students, headed-up the procession. Her biggest concern, she admitted, was doing something wrong on the way down the aisle. What if she walked too fast, tripped over her confirmation gown, sat in the wrong pew? Everyone was following her; watching her. The ‘what ifs’ filled her head as she began to make her way toward the bishop.
Now standing before him, she held her breath for a second as he made the sign of the cross on her forehead with Chrism, the blessed oil. Immediately, and very unexpectedly, she felt a powerful warmth begin to spread from her forehead throughout her entire body. Tears welled-up in her eyes and, as she returned to her pew, spilled down her cheeks. She could not deny that something special had happened. There was no doubting it; the experience was tangible, not something to be forgotten. And while it would be years before Leah would fully understand that it was God’s grace that had begun the transformation of her inner life, and enabled her to respond to God’s love with a life of faith, Leah began that day to understand one important thing — what it means to have an encounter with Christ through the sacraments.
When Leah was done sharing her story, I had goose bumps on my arms and a lump in my throat. I remembered the only student, a very challenging young man to say the least, whom I had recommended be removed from the confirmation program. He had a history of being uncooperative, uninterested and disruptive in class. I felt he was impeding the learning of the others in his class, so I told the director to recommend an RCIA program when he was ready.
Whenever I think about him now, having grown in my own faith and understanding of grace, of embracing the sacraments as special moments of contact with God, I wonder if I did the right thing. I question my motivation and my own ability, at the time, to catechize. But, I also know that without new eyes, born of many additional years of my own formation, I would probably make the same decision again.
Leah’s experience is a valuable one for reflection. It reminds us that the heart’s readiness for Christ, for acknowledging the indwelling Spirit that is the Gift of God, is not always visible to us on the outside.
We need to be humble enough to sometimes get out of the way, for grace’s sake — to not be stumbling blocks of good intentions — when God has other plans.
