Are you a fair face?

I heard a homily awhile back that really hit me. It was one of those times where I felt like the priest was talking directly to my heart, and at a time when I was trying not to be annoyed at the church I was in and the people I was with! (Ever notice that Catholic churches unfortunately aren’t always the most welcoming places, and that many times it seems the people want to be anywhere but there?) It grabbed my attention because it wasn’t the take I would have thought of for a homily on that Gospel.

The passage (Mt. 11:2-5 or Lk. 7:18-22) was the one where John the Baptist is sitting in prison, and he sends his disciples to Jesus to ask Him if He is the Messiah, the one they’ve been waiting for, or if they should look for another. Jesus basically says to them, “Go and tell John” and then He proceeds to list the things that are happening. “The blind see, the lame walk…” and so on. I remember being astounded when I first started studying Scripture in college and realized that this comes directly from passages in Isaiah where it says that all these things would come to pass when the Messiah came. (esp. Is.61:1)What Jesus is saying to John (who of course knew his Old Testament) is, “Remember this prophecy? It’s being fulfilled through me now. Yes, I am He.”

What the priest focused on, however, was John in the dark, having to ask through his disciples. Here he is apart from everyone, not seeing Jesus anymore who is now out preaching and performing miracles, and John wants to know if Jesus is THE ONE. “Do I have it right? Have I prepared the way for He who is to come?”

Maybe he was really doubting. I mean, he hears of what’s happening outside and maybe, as some say, it doesn’t exactly fit his expectation of what the Messiah would be like. Maybe more than anything he wanted his disciples to hear the answer…who knows. But what is important here is that this does happen in our life. We don’t see Jesus before us the way He was then…laying His hands on the sick, giving words of comfort to the downtrodden. And we don’t always understand why God acts the way He does, why He allows certain things in our life and in the world.

When we suffer, when we feel alone, when we don’t feel God’s presence the way we’d like or don’t understand something, we can start to wonder, is there meaning to all of this? Is my faith in God well placed? Do I have it right? What if I am truly alone? And Jesus says through this passage to John and to us, “I am He. My presence is real and my love is active in the world, though you do not see me right now, though you do not understand it all.”

One of the main points of the homily became the fact that often it is through others good works and “fair faces” that we recognize and experience God. I thought his expression was cute because…well, who says fair faces? But as I looked around I thought it was an apt description. All around me, in the very people I had felt alienated from a bit earlier, were fair faces. All of a sudden my heart was opened and my expectations of what things should be were left behind. I saw the sweet old women who smile with their eyes of wisdom, teens trying to find their way in a society that doesn’t support their morals…all around me children of God who are in their imperfect, wounded way, bearing Christ to me, if I but have the eyes to see Him.

When Mary (speaking of fair faces) said her “Fiat” (her “yes”) to the angel Gabriel, she became the first to have God “take flesh” in her. She then went immediately to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who at the sound of Mary’s voice felt the babe in her womb (John the Baptist!) “leap for joy.” (Lk.1:44) In the Eucharist, Jesus has given us the great gift of remaining with us here on earth, fully present to us under the veil of bread and wine. When we receive Him in Holy Communion and say our “Amen,” we are saying, “Fiat, let it be done. Jesus, take flesh in me that I might become like You, that I might carry You out from here and bear You to a world in need.” This is how we conquer our doubts, this is how we become Christ for others. Hopefully, if we allow ourselves to be transformed by Him, even our voice will witness to His presence.

Be encouraged, look for God in the unexpected, draw near to Him in the Eucharist.

~ Erin Flynn