It had been a few crazy days leading up to the Illinois March for Life, so I had slept soundly and my conversation with God the morning after was filled with tremendous gratitude for all the graces that had carried us through the prior days, and all the ways that Our Lord had opened doors to make such a tremendous witness of His love for human life possible. On my mind, of course, was the visit I would be making later that day to the schoolkids at Sacred Heart in Effingham. Many rainy miles awaited me and my car bookending the several hours I would be spending engaging all the different grades down there throughout the day, so I leaned into the lesson that God had been teaching me all this Lent and asked Him to lighten the burdens that awaited me that day too. Gradually those voices of fear and fatigue were replaced by confident peace in the Lord and I genuflected before heading inside.
One frustration remained on my heart: I had forgotten the Cathedral’s book of the Gospels at the UIS Auditorium. I had realized this the day before as I put some of the things away (altar-cloths, chalices, the 7th candle that indicates when a bishop is celebrating Mass…) I had texted some of the others that could have ended up with it, but the replies that were waiting for me Wednesday morning indicated that nobody had the book and it was my forgetfulness that had left it somewhere over there. Ah well, it couldn’t all go perfectly, and someone over there would probably have found (and not tossed) the giant red and gold book. Still, as I stepped past the sacristy, there was a niggling somewhere in the back of my mind, “what if God wanted to provide here too?” Without much expectation, I stopped in the sacristy and flipped open the cabinet that held all the sacred books.
And there it was.
I kid you not.
The Book of the Gospels was sitting there on its shelf already.
I was shocked, surprised, delighted, reassured. What does one do when confronted with a miracle? How do you respond to it, to such a small miracle? I didn’t know miracles came in a “small” size. I mean, I wasn’t blind and now I could see, or dead and returned to life again. I thought Jesus only tackled the big stuff: leprosy, hatred, unforgiveness, death … Does God care about me so fully that He would want to solve a problem I could have probably figured out with a phone call, or worst-case, a few hundred dollars?! Yes, it seems He does!
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was blind, and could now see; dead, and coming to life again. Some part of my heart had the expectation that God did not care about the small concerns of my life. I had internalized a distorted version of God as a Father Who would only help once I had proven myself, after I had lifted what I could on my own. I had fallen for the lie that I had to earn God’s Love. Here, placed on that shelf in our Cathedral sacristy, was proof to the contrary!
Thing is, God wants to marvelously, miraculously, restore the presence and power of His Gospel to all our hearts. What parts of you do you doubt God’s Love can heal? What relationships do you assume are irredeemable? What sins do you think will always plague you? What sufferings do you feel are too small for God to care about? When Christ stepped out of the tomb, He wasn’t just promising resurrection to those who were dead. He was also promising resurrection to those who are half-dead, to all the parts of us that aren’t fully alive, to all who are tired, afraid, burdened, or stuck. God’s Love doesn’t delay until disaster. God’s Truth doesn’t wait for us to hit rock bottom. God’s Gospel doesn’t depend on us finding it.
God is not a Father who waits for us to get our act together.
Consider every encounter of someone and the Christ, Risen from the dead. Jesus steps into the garden of Mary Magdalen’s tears. He calls out to Peter swallowed by failure and shame. He beckons Thomas tormented by doubt and loneliness. He walks up to Cleopas and Mary as sorrow carried them far from Jerusalem. He knocks Saul away from his pride and brutality.
This is the same Christ Who is alive, approaching us today. This is the same Gospel that is gently, miraculously, placed in your and my hands. Will I unwrap God’s gift today? Will I accept His Love? Will I allow Him into the small stuff too?
– Fr. Dominic was recently with a family who had just received the news that their two-year-old daughter had brain cancer. On their family chalkboard were these words: “[Our daughter’s] situation is like that of the blind man in Saint John’s Gospel (Jn 9:1-38). The apostles said, Lord, who sinned, this man or his parents? And Jesus said, neither, but ‘so that the works of God might be displayed in him.’ God has important plans for [her] and for our family through all of this. Love, Mom & Dad.”
Nothing can separate us from the love of God!