Today I met the eyes of Christ once again. Amazingly enough, the man who came to knock today looked just like Him. Looked just like the Lord. Looked like the Alpha and the Omega. He was adorned clothing unbecoming to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Today, the Man who looked like Jesus was dressed in clothing he'd been wearing for days. He was lost and needed water, food, and gasoline to take himself and his mother back to Tennessee. But the face was so intriguingly familiar. In the course of my work day, I see many many impoverished souls during any given week. All of them resemble Christ in a spiritual sense. But this particular fellow, tall and a little gaunt, looked like Jesus whom I have seen.
He'd lost his carpenter job in Phoenix. He'd no where to go but back home to Tennessee. With this one soul I felt the weight of the entire world upon his shoulders. And looking at him, I could tell that he was strong enough to bear it all. "Yeah...Tom," I say to myself: "Jesus on his way to Tennessee. Yeah right." After pumping gas and giving them a bucket of chicken and bottles of water, things got a bit dramatic. Customers angry about having to wait their turn at the pump guffawed and the nerve of the scene. And so it was that the Jesus Look-alike cried in front of me and everyone at the gas station. He then asked how he and his mother could pay this back, and with their soiled clothes, and unkempt bodies, they threw their arms around me and the challenge to me was -- ok, a voice rang out clearly to my mind: "Hug them back, Tom, like you care." And so I did. The embrace was the kind of embrace one gets and gives to their mother or father or brother or husband or wife. I could feel the heartbeats beneath. I could hear them breathe with a sense that someone cared if they lived or died. Unfortunately, it seems that the "warm and fuzzy" feeling a person is supposed to get when doing a good deed, never comes. Maybe because I always have it in the back of my mind...you didn't do enough. And if this guy was Jesus Himself, I know I didn't do enough.
You ask, "huh? Jesus? You saying you hugged Jesus?" I say: "Yes. This man looked like a real image of Jesus I had seen earlier this month. But today, I encountered Him in a very brief journey into the darkness of the lives of this mother and son. In that split second journey I saw a cave of rejection, a chasm of disappointment, and a grave of despair. You say: "Ah...how sentimental." I say: "It is sentimental, but it is real; and it is not the sentimentality of anything that should move us to act, but rather, the "realness" of it."
I contemplate the carpenter's own desire for equilibrium as he asks: "What could we do to pay you back?" That desire for equilibrium is an in born sense that there is a value to the gift we receive that must be redeemed. He would be forever in my debt if he couldn't pay me back. It might seem that my answer to him should be: "Nothing of course. You don't have to pay me back." But instead I said to Him: "Because I know who You are, I will ask for something in return. I ask you to share my request to the Father in heaven to bless all ministers of the Gospel in these difficult times." I exhorted: "Pray for me," The man with the large eyes blinks all watered up, and a drop drips upon his beard and the rag tag T shirt. I asked Him to pray that the Father in heaven might send an inundation of provisions to the poor. I also asked Him to ask the Father for rain for our fields and crops. I asked this wandering couple of immigrants, a Mother and a Son, from the east, to pray for peace above all. I took out my holy water and blessed them and their little vehicle as a reminder to me of my Baptism, not theirs. Jesus needed no Baptism but was Baptised anyway. This is as it should be. The sprinkle of cool water and salt on a hot day opened their eyes wider and made them smile.
At this point, you might be thinking that I am speaking "spiritually" with respect to this transient couple as "resembling Christ." Or perhaps you may think I am waxing poetic and that I met someone who was in need and that by some form of "psychological transference," I imagined the face of Christ on that poor person. If you think those things, you are dead wrong. I know exactly what the face of Christ looks like. I have seen it. I have seen it draped in a veil of blood with matted hair, broken nose, dilated eyes, drooling blood, emaciated face of abuse and pain. I have seen his face also in a more pleasant way. I have seen what big eyes He has, color indeterminable but bold, rounded, whites pure and snowy white, irises resplendent as what you might see in a kaleidoscope, and pupils large and blacker than a sky without starlight, deep black.
You say: "Hmmmm." I say: "Him." You say, "you're nuts." I say: "I am not." You say: "Where are you leading me?" I say: "Into to the darkness of the pupils of the eyes of Christ."
You see, I had the experience of a vision one day at Mass wherein the head of Christ appeared to me as a three dimensional figure. He appeared to me as one might see in a hologram. He was transparent but unconnected to the inner part of the chalice. The appearance came after the words of institution. In this vision, His face looked at me out of the chalice as though he rose up out of the wine become blood. His head tilted upward, looked left at the priest, then this handsome face looked right at me, and his lips were full and soft, and happy. The eyes twinkled. This was not the sorrowful Lord I had once seen in the previous vision. This was a glorious face with eyes that would back the very sun away, this was a face that would back the universe away, calm storms, cure lepers, raise the dead and forgive sins. I didn't know whether or not I should fall to my knees or whether I should shout out -- and I looked out at the congregation, to see if they also had seen anything unusual. No. Half of them were yawning, some eyes closed in prayer, some eyes closed as if they did not want to be there. There was no indication that anyone but me received this gift. I backed away in surprise to see if it was a matter of perspective or that my eyes were playing tricks on me. But no, He raised up his wounded hands out of the blood and His Big eyes looked up to heaven as if in thanksgiving. I suddenly noticed he was wearing a Chasuble. I looked at Fr. R, and I looked at the image to see if it was not a simple reflection of him, the celebrant. But it was not. This image appeared to me with wounded hands but as if healed and glorious. His movement was solemn and real and his eyes....oh His eyes were large and sucked me into the universe inside the blackness of his pupils. In there I felt secure and somehow even after the image was gone, I remained inside His eyes. Time had passed in a way that I missed the interceding moments between the words of institution and the Great Doxology. But those caught my attention as I saw his precious face disappear and what was left was a distorted reflection on the curvature of the inner chalice that was obviously our priest.
I have seen the face of Jesus in the Real Presence at Mass. A vision? Yes. Real? I believe. I was amazed and afraid? Indeed. But I also saw that same face approach me with a need so great that it almost seems if I had not recognized him, I would have told him "no," we don't help immigrants moving from one place to another. You need an address to receive help. You need a phone number or you don't qualify.
I saw the face of Christ today. I will see it tomorrow. I will see it the rest of my life. And I am afraid each time knowing my life depends upon His and yet know that He does not want me to be afraid. As the apostles were "amazed and afraid," so am I. I can only recognize Him in the breaking and sharing of the bread of my compassion, concern, and love. These very virtues are the candles within the cave of rejection, the chasm of disappointment, and a grave of despair. Need presents itself as the humility of Christ's own physical dark pupils which I must venture "into" in order to see....in order to see Him. And in the deepest darkness of the pupils of Jesus is a warm early morning charcoal fire where He invites me to sit and have breakfast with Him.
He'd lost his carpenter job in Phoenix. He'd no where to go but back home to Tennessee. With this one soul I felt the weight of the entire world upon his shoulders. And looking at him, I could tell that he was strong enough to bear it all. "Yeah...Tom," I say to myself: "Jesus on his way to Tennessee. Yeah right." After pumping gas and giving them a bucket of chicken and bottles of water, things got a bit dramatic. Customers angry about having to wait their turn at the pump guffawed and the nerve of the scene. And so it was that the Jesus Look-alike cried in front of me and everyone at the gas station. He then asked how he and his mother could pay this back, and with their soiled clothes, and unkempt bodies, they threw their arms around me and the challenge to me was -- ok, a voice rang out clearly to my mind: "Hug them back, Tom, like you care." And so I did. The embrace was the kind of embrace one gets and gives to their mother or father or brother or husband or wife. I could feel the heartbeats beneath. I could hear them breathe with a sense that someone cared if they lived or died. Unfortunately, it seems that the "warm and fuzzy" feeling a person is supposed to get when doing a good deed, never comes. Maybe because I always have it in the back of my mind...you didn't do enough. And if this guy was Jesus Himself, I know I didn't do enough.
You ask, "huh? Jesus? You saying you hugged Jesus?" I say: "Yes. This man looked like a real image of Jesus I had seen earlier this month. But today, I encountered Him in a very brief journey into the darkness of the lives of this mother and son. In that split second journey I saw a cave of rejection, a chasm of disappointment, and a grave of despair. You say: "Ah...how sentimental." I say: "It is sentimental, but it is real; and it is not the sentimentality of anything that should move us to act, but rather, the "realness" of it."
I contemplate the carpenter's own desire for equilibrium as he asks: "What could we do to pay you back?" That desire for equilibrium is an in born sense that there is a value to the gift we receive that must be redeemed. He would be forever in my debt if he couldn't pay me back. It might seem that my answer to him should be: "Nothing of course. You don't have to pay me back." But instead I said to Him: "Because I know who You are, I will ask for something in return. I ask you to share my request to the Father in heaven to bless all ministers of the Gospel in these difficult times." I exhorted: "Pray for me," The man with the large eyes blinks all watered up, and a drop drips upon his beard and the rag tag T shirt. I asked Him to pray that the Father in heaven might send an inundation of provisions to the poor. I also asked Him to ask the Father for rain for our fields and crops. I asked this wandering couple of immigrants, a Mother and a Son, from the east, to pray for peace above all. I took out my holy water and blessed them and their little vehicle as a reminder to me of my Baptism, not theirs. Jesus needed no Baptism but was Baptised anyway. This is as it should be. The sprinkle of cool water and salt on a hot day opened their eyes wider and made them smile.
At this point, you might be thinking that I am speaking "spiritually" with respect to this transient couple as "resembling Christ." Or perhaps you may think I am waxing poetic and that I met someone who was in need and that by some form of "psychological transference," I imagined the face of Christ on that poor person. If you think those things, you are dead wrong. I know exactly what the face of Christ looks like. I have seen it. I have seen it draped in a veil of blood with matted hair, broken nose, dilated eyes, drooling blood, emaciated face of abuse and pain. I have seen his face also in a more pleasant way. I have seen what big eyes He has, color indeterminable but bold, rounded, whites pure and snowy white, irises resplendent as what you might see in a kaleidoscope, and pupils large and blacker than a sky without starlight, deep black.
You say: "Hmmmm." I say: "Him." You say, "you're nuts." I say: "I am not." You say: "Where are you leading me?" I say: "Into to the darkness of the pupils of the eyes of Christ."
You see, I had the experience of a vision one day at Mass wherein the head of Christ appeared to me as a three dimensional figure. He appeared to me as one might see in a hologram. He was transparent but unconnected to the inner part of the chalice. The appearance came after the words of institution. In this vision, His face looked at me out of the chalice as though he rose up out of the wine become blood. His head tilted upward, looked left at the priest, then this handsome face looked right at me, and his lips were full and soft, and happy. The eyes twinkled. This was not the sorrowful Lord I had once seen in the previous vision. This was a glorious face with eyes that would back the very sun away, this was a face that would back the universe away, calm storms, cure lepers, raise the dead and forgive sins. I didn't know whether or not I should fall to my knees or whether I should shout out -- and I looked out at the congregation, to see if they also had seen anything unusual. No. Half of them were yawning, some eyes closed in prayer, some eyes closed as if they did not want to be there. There was no indication that anyone but me received this gift. I backed away in surprise to see if it was a matter of perspective or that my eyes were playing tricks on me. But no, He raised up his wounded hands out of the blood and His Big eyes looked up to heaven as if in thanksgiving. I suddenly noticed he was wearing a Chasuble. I looked at Fr. R, and I looked at the image to see if it was not a simple reflection of him, the celebrant. But it was not. This image appeared to me with wounded hands but as if healed and glorious. His movement was solemn and real and his eyes....oh His eyes were large and sucked me into the universe inside the blackness of his pupils. In there I felt secure and somehow even after the image was gone, I remained inside His eyes. Time had passed in a way that I missed the interceding moments between the words of institution and the Great Doxology. But those caught my attention as I saw his precious face disappear and what was left was a distorted reflection on the curvature of the inner chalice that was obviously our priest.
I have seen the face of Jesus in the Real Presence at Mass. A vision? Yes. Real? I believe. I was amazed and afraid? Indeed. But I also saw that same face approach me with a need so great that it almost seems if I had not recognized him, I would have told him "no," we don't help immigrants moving from one place to another. You need an address to receive help. You need a phone number or you don't qualify.
I saw the face of Christ today. I will see it tomorrow. I will see it the rest of my life. And I am afraid each time knowing my life depends upon His and yet know that He does not want me to be afraid. As the apostles were "amazed and afraid," so am I. I can only recognize Him in the breaking and sharing of the bread of my compassion, concern, and love. These very virtues are the candles within the cave of rejection, the chasm of disappointment, and a grave of despair. Need presents itself as the humility of Christ's own physical dark pupils which I must venture "into" in order to see....in order to see Him. And in the deepest darkness of the pupils of Jesus is a warm early morning charcoal fire where He invites me to sit and have breakfast with Him.
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