It was a quiet afternoon in the ministry. With the cold weather, and the closures due to the pandemic, few people passed through the offices and chapel. Even the Gregorian chant that is heard in our foyer was quiet, due to a mechanical problem. Together these happenings created a still environment for me to review the Scriptures. It wasn’t long before receiving an inspiration: "If we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is brought to perfection in us."
Images of people began to circulate in my mind, men, women whose persona oozed goodness. Those who embodied kindness and compassion, individuals who spoke soothing words of assurance that all would be well. No specific faces came to mind rather a composite picture, a collage, a mountain of faces who together imaged Jesus Christ.
If we love St. John said God’s love is brought to perfection. How do some people acquire this love? Where does it come from besides God? Where is the well from which it is drawn? The short answer, for many it begins in the home.
I was confirmed in that answer as I was sitting in a chair in my office, formerly a clothes closet, and I looked up at the poster that was on the window of my door. I counted 58 young men seeking to know God more clearly as Holy Cross seminarians and brothers. What inspired these young men to love God with all their minds, hearts and souls and their neighbors as themselves? They said it was what they saw at home, in a teacher or a rector, a Holy Cross priest who lived in their dormitory. The kindness of mentors coupled with God’s love diminished fear of reaching out to grasp the hand of God and asking to walk with him.
I thought of these 58 men as I read the gospel, young men with hope to bring who one day please God would feed thousands. I thought of them knowing that they too would encounter storms as did the disciples who thought Jesus was a ghost.
Today our church is celebrating the life and work of St. John Neumann. Talk about someone who oozed love. He arrived in America with one set of cloths and $1.00 in his pocket. His ministry in Western NY was one of great hardship, staying overnight in taverns and celebrating mass on kitchen tables. He embraced the adage, "If you are going through hell, keep going." He was a legend. Eventually he joined the Redemptorist and was named Bishop of Philadelphia. God’s love was brought to perfection in him and thousands came to know the love that God had for them through this man who once said, "God sees every one of us; he creates every soul for a purpose."
