Who cleans the kitchen stove in your home? It’s Monday night at 7:30, Richard and I took over finishing the dishes and pots and pans after feeding a record number of hungry college students. I overheard Joan, Richard’s beloved spouse, shout: “honey, whose going to clean the stove?” Now imagine this scene, God the Father saying this to the Holy Spirit, “honey, whose going to clean the heavenly stove?” Of course, God the Father and God the Holy Spirit look over to Jesus as he rolls up his sleeves and starts scrubbing! Does this not explain the deepest mystery in our Catholic faith?John the evangelist tells us “God is love.” However, sometimes our images of God can lead us astray. For many young people, religion has only given them a God to fear, a thundering Jehovah, an all-seeing eye. It is not a reverential fear but God in a vindictive role, someone we had better appease.
A better example of God’s love was the miracle of “loaves and fishes” when the Neumann community fed a thousand students during exam week. You could help to notice that the kids were happy, sharing life, listening to one another, and glad for the gift of companionship. It is at moments like this that we find a way to start thinking about what God is really like. There was no mystery where God was to be found on three nights during exam week. While parishioners served and washed, cooked more pasta (they were running low), they were inviting God into the very hearts of these young students and celebrating his love.
“Born again” means to be “reborn in the spirit” a spiritual birth where a person becomes aware that they are more than concerned about self-preservation, reproduction, pleasure, hording of possessions, and struggles for power and status. It is the recognition that we have higher aims and values than these. It is when we are able to view ourselves as one with our God, the Trinity and consequently with all other people, leading us to act with practical compassion toward others. As Christians we call it being one with Christ. We see the world as Christ sees the world. We hear the cries for help as Christ hears our cries for help. The Neumann community knew the students were low on cash, but something even more profound, they were “low on examples of unselfish love”—Trinity love.
God prays for us as we reflect: “Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality.” Romans 12:13.
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends whose daily gestures of unselfish love go unnoticed. Let them know that the God who “sees all” will never forget your acts of compassion and kindness. In the words of our Brockport students: "You guys ROCK!! You are all awesome!”
