Touched By The Holy

From 1974 to 1996, I was blessed with opportunities to travel in foreign countries. In Africa, India and the Philippines, I interacted with native priests, gave them retreats, lived in their homes and moved about in their parishes. Although I was handicapped by a lack of knowledge of their native languages, yet we were able to communicate in English and so we could establish some bonds.

This inability to converse in a native tongue led me to Bolivia where I studied Spanish and spent nearly a year in the Bolivian culture. What a great difference in understanding a people when you can "speak their language"!

Now these many years later, in reflecting on those experiences, several things have become very clear to me. Once a person has been graced by being picked up by the hair and transported out of their comfort zone, nothing is ever the same. When that transport includes living in another culture, life is changed forever because one has been Touched by the Holy (like Isaiah 6). Only the Holy is God's People experienced in that other culture.

Or to put it in another Biblical image, like Moses before the Burning Bush, one learns to "take off your shoes, for the ground on which you walk is holy ground" (Exodus 3:5). When we learn to approach another person, another people, another culture as we approach the Holy, then our lives are changed, we are transformed, we are blessed.

Fortunately, it is not necessary to leave this country to experience the Holy in this manner. This grace is available each time we meet another person, whether on the street, in the grocery store or in our own family. God is present, desiring to lift us out of our comfort zone and move us into the Divine Presence in every personal encounter we have. Only our own prejudices and fixed mindsets can prevent us from recognizing the Holy One standing before us.

Are you ready to be transported out of your comfort zone so you can be touched by Holy?

Sacred History

Gail and Marilyn, who belong to our morning Bible study, are preparing to celebrate their 50th Wedding Anniversary in May. As part of the getting ready, they have been going through photo albums from their married life, picking photos for a slide presentation to be shown during the festivities. Last week, Marilyn shared with us what an awesome experience it has been to walk prayerfully through their history, and see the many ways that God has been present and blessed them.

One of the overwhelming realizations that they came to, and subsequently shared with us, was how God always seemed to be present, supporting them and guiding them, in the struggles and difficulties of their life together. That supportive presence was manifested most often and most consistently through whatever faith community they were a part of at the time. It might have been Christian Family Movement, Cursillo, Marriage Encounter, Charismatic Movement, or any number of other Catholic faith communities.

At this particular point in their faith journey, our morning Bible study is serving in that capacity of supportive and guiding faith community. For the last three years we have been sharing our faith as we reflect on and study the Bible. Their realization is that God has never left them without a faith community. At the same time, they have no idea where their life would be today were it not for the ever-present community of faith surrounding and carrying them along.

As they were sharing their insights and their gratitude for God's loving hand in their sacred history, I was struck with the importance of each one of us taking time to reflect on our own sacred history. From time to time, how encouraging and edifying it could be for us if we would spend time tracing the loving hand of God in our own lives. For it is a fact, God has always been with us. If we are not aware of God's presence, it is only because we have not taken the opportunity to peel back the top layer of our story and discover the underlying hand of God. We don't have to wait for a special occasion, like a 50th anniversary. We can do it today.