THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST

Dear Friends in Christ;

When I taught at a Roman Catholic high school, I was asked to teach a class on pastoral listening for the school’s peer counselors. I began the class with a reminder to the students that in their work with other students they would be in the presence of Christ. By Baptism each of them and the students who came to them were members of the Body of Christ, that Christ was truly present in each of them, and that the time they spent together would be sacred time.

After the class, the school’s campus minister told me that he was concerned that I had confused the students with that reminder. After all, he said, the Real Presence of Christ is in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. I can’t remember what I said in response, but I believe that Christ is no less present in each of us through Baptism than he is present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. Where we are Christ is present and that makes the places where we are sacred places and the time sacred time.

This is - at least in part – the Good News of Pentecost. By the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ was present in the Church in the apostolic age. By that same power, Christ is present in this age, in us and through us in the world and fro the world. The Trappist monk Thomas Merton, in an address to the novices of his monastery, said that each of them – each of us – has a vocation to let Christ be present in and through us in a unique way, and that if we fail in that vocation, the Church’s mission of making Christ known will be that much poorer.

Each of us and all of us together are called to make Christ known in and for the world. We do this is an incredible variety of ways, according to the gifts that God has given us and our personal vocations. Few of us have been called, as our Pentecost preacher Mary Sherwood has, to be missionaries in other countries. But we are each called to be missionaries somewhere – in our homes – in our schools – in the places where we work – in the community – and here in the parish. In each place where we spend time, God wants us to make Christ known, by our actions and our attitudes, by the values we exhibit in the choices we make, and by our words. In our weekly visits to The Waters, I often remind the residents – and myself – that we make Christ known when we take time to listen to another person, when we say a kind word, when we smile.

In July several of us, young people and adults, will go on mission to New Orleans. As part of this ecumenical mission trip, we will seek to make Christ’s love known as we work to rebuild a small piece of that city.  I ask that you pray for us as we prepare for the trip and during the week that we will be away (July 22-29). Although all the members of the parish won’t be traveling to New Orleans, those of us who are going will be going as your ambassadors, to share the love that we have found in this parish community with our sisters and brothers in New Orleans.

Your brother and priest,

Daniel+