I heard a young new deacon give a homily at Mass today that made me both smile and ponder deeply. (He’s off to a good start!) He was saying that we sometimes don’t recognize that we are growing spiritually, but that each encounter with Christ changes us, whether we feel it or not. He likened it to a small child who keeps asking, “Have I grown bigger yet?”
I laughed to myself because I could picture it so easily. Little kids always do this, don’t they? They want proof that they’re growing, that they’re changing. They want to know, “How tall am I?” “Am I so big now?” And they can’t really tell; they don’t see it. But from the outside, if you’ve ever spent time with babies and little children, you constantly see changes in so many ways. Sometimes you can notice it in big things, their growth spurts of height, weight, motor skills, etc. But sometimes it’s slight and slow. Their pudgy arms get leaner, their face shape changes, their hair gets thicker, their hands mature, and before you know it, they look so very different.
What our deacon was trying to get across with his initial example was simply this: We are all growing and changing all the time, whether we see it or not. And this happens in direct relation to our encounters with Christ — when we meet him in the poor, in the sick, in prayer, adoration, and especially in our reception of the Eucharist. But it got me thinking about the degree of change that occurs and about that word: encounter.
If you look it up, there are quite a few meanings, many of them having an element of the unexpected or a conflict or even coming upon an adversary. But then I hit upon these: to come upon face-to-face; to meet. And I thought, “Yes, that’s this type of encounter!” And then, because I’m a word nerd, I looked some more at the various Latin roots and found this: “in front of” or “to come up against.” Those were the ones used in terms of a conflict or hostile meeting. Yet, minus the hostile part, they actually create this compelling image.
Because whatever the case, it is certain that any encounter is a meeting of something or someone that is “other.” We come up against it; it is in front of us. In other words, it’s not part of us. To encounter necessitates that there is something outside of ourselves to come upon. And that for me is the very heart of the matter. Each encounter we have — precisely because it is outside of ourselves — affects us. It’s the beauty of the Body of Christ, of creation. We are being affected every day, every moment, by numerous encounters. And each one has the ability to change us. I’ll take that a step further and say it has the ability to change us for better or for worse. And this is where the type and degree of change comes into play.
While it is part of the mystery of the created world that every part of creation somehow reflects the goodness of its Creator, it is also part of the beauty and mystery of man that we have the ability to choose how we receive and respond to that. St. John of the Cross said (essentially — I’m horribly paraphrasing here) that it is our interior disposition that enables us to grow in our love for Christ and to deepen our union with Him through even the smallest thing.
That is the incredible invitation of every single encounter. God’s grace, His Divine life, His Presence is available to us each moment, each wonderful or difficult moment … whether it’s a bird singing outside your window, quiet prayer time, an annoying neighbor who needs a listening ear, the problem you can’t seem to fix, a loving friend, or the ultimate encounter with Jesus in Holy Communion. He wants to form us, to change us, to help us grow. How? He wants to become part of us.
We encounter, we respond, we receive.
And the depth of our union with God Himself is dependent on the appropriateness of our response to that which is in front of us and the unfetteredness of our receptivity to what God wants to do within us.
I’ll close with what was actually on my mind from the beginning. Everywhere we turn, we come face to face with the reality that we are constantly encountering Jesus — and, more than that, He is offering us His heart. That’s what we are coming upon at the deepest level of every encounter, the heart of Christ.
When I was growing up we had an old image of the Sacred Heart hanging in our kitchen. And it was one of those ones where the eyes seem to follow you wherever you go. I assure you this was especially unnerving when one would try to sneak in past curfew (or so I’ve heard).
But there it is. We cannot escape the gaze of God. But it’s not one of judgment, it’s one of mercy, encouragement. His gaze is always an invitation to union. The effect of every encounter can be, should be, union with the heart of Christ. How amazing is that? And the more we are immersed in that relationship of love, the more we can be His Presence for those who encounter us.
As we close out this month of the Sacred Heart, I invite you to ponder those three words: Encounter. Respond. Receive.
“God defines himself as ‘I am who I am’,
which also means: My being is such that
I shall always be present in every moment of becoming.”
~ Hans Urs von Balthasar
Unless You Become Like This Child
(Taken from MercySong Ministries E-Newsletter, Issue No. 6: The Sacred Heart & Summer)
