If you look up the phrase “take for granted”, one definition from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is as follows: “to value (something or someone) too lightly : to fail to properly notice or appreciate (someone or something that should be valued).” Pope Benedict warns that “we who have always lived with the Christian concept of God, and have grown accustomed to it, have almost ceased to notice that we possess the hope that ensues from a real encounter with this God.” (SS, 3) We have a real encounter with God every time we come to Mass, as He speaks to us in His Word and we receive His very being in the Eucharist. Perhaps because we encounter God so frequently, or because we do not always have a life-altering experience of His love for us with each encounter, we can take Him for granted.
In an attempt to invite us to rediscover the gift of this encounter, the Holy Father introduces us to a modern saint who had a real encounter with God for the first time, an encounter that would change her perspective on hope radically. The saint is the African St. Josephine Bakhita. At a relatively early age, she was kidnapped by slave-traders and treated very harshly, which resulted in her bearing 144 scars for the rest of her life. She was eventually sold to an Italian merchant and she found herself living in a new country. While in Italy, she began to hear about a new kind of Master. Pope Benedict writes the following:
Up to that time she had known only masters who despised and maltreated her, or at best considered her a useful slave. Now, however, she heard that there is a “paron” above all masters, the Lord of all lords, and that this Lord is good, goodness in person. She came to know that this Lord even knew her, that he had created her—that he actually loved her. She too was loved, and by none other than the supreme “Paron”, before whom all other masters are themselves no more than lowly servants. She was known and loved and she was awaited. What is more, this master had himself accepted the destiny of being flogged and now he was waiting for her “at the Father’s right hand” (SS 3)
He then describes how this new awareness of a loving, personal God shifted her perspective on hope:
Now she had “hope”—no longer simply the modest hope of finding masters who would be less cruel, but the great hope: “I am definitively loved and whatever happens to me—I am awaited by this Love. And so my life is good.” Through the knowledge of this hope she was “redeemed”, no longer a slave, but a free child of God. (SS 3)
She would go on to be baptized and confirmed, and eventually she became a consecrated religious sister. She then committed herself to sharing the message of the “liberation she had received through her encounter with Jesus Christ”, to spread the message of hope to as many as possible.
The next time we are at Mass, perhaps we can call to mind how we have maybe taken for granted what a gift we have in being able to encounter our loving Master so frequently and so profoundly. Let us pray that through that weekly (or even daily) encounter, we may come to be reminded of God’s unique and personal love for us, and how that love gives us a hope that the disappointments of this world cannot shake, but which can encourage us to keep moving forward until the fulfillment of our hope is realized.
Father Alford