Sending Out the Seventy (or Seventy Two)
The gospel for yesterday was the famous passage from Luke 10. Fr. Mike is back in Colorado Springs and preached a really good sermon in which he acknowledged publicly for the first time that he is J.K. Rowling's long-lost twin brother and that she has entrusted him with the answer to the burning question: "What happened to Harry Potter in book 7?" - under the seal of the confessional.
Ok, maybe not . . . (dodging brickbats) but his homily was very good and the passage brought back vivid memories of my pre-Catholic life.
As a young evangelical preparing for a missionary career, I attended the "cross-culture" part of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA.
I vividly remember the beginning of one class in which the instructor rolled in . . .in a wheelchair. He was a quadrapalegic former missionary and instructor in an innovative course: Language Learning in Community. It seemed like another ordinary graduate course - with a huge syllabus, lists of books, exams, papers, etc.
Except for one thing: When the instructor rolled in, I had a sudden, intense sense of the presence of God in, over, and around him. I blinked and kept staring at him, looking for some obvious, visible sign that he was different from the other professors, all of whom were devout Christians and experienced missionaries. Nothing. So I thought, I'll just wait and see.
Several weeks into the course, the instructor started to speak about the same passage: Luke 10 and the sending out of the disciples two by two. As he spoke, something happened. We were no longer in a classroom - we were in worship and I can't tell you how or why it happened. But I thought "Now I am seeing manifested what I somehow recognized on that first day when he rolled in"
After class, I went to him, knelt by his wheelchair, and told him what I had sensed on that first day - and he began to cry. I think it was a confirmation to him that God had granted the desire of his heart - to be so embued with the spirit of Christ that even total strangers could sense it.
Some time later, I heard that he had died, struck down by one of the chronic ailments that affect quadrapolegics. I hadn't thought of him in years until the gospel was read yesterday but it all came flooding back.
May that be the desire of our hearts as well - and may God grant it.
posted by Sherry W @ 6:27 AM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
I have often heard people refer to sensing " the presence of God". Can you explain a bit more about what you mean by this? Is it something physical, an emotional feeling or what exactly ? You'll have to excuse me for being somewhat "spiritually retarded", even though I consider myself a serious Christian.
Well, it varies from person to person, as we know from having talked to so many thousands of people about their charisms.
Because for some (rare) people, this is a pretty regular occurance and seems to be a charism.
In my experience, it is a direct, immediate strong, intuitive sense of the presence of God's Spirit when I first encounter a person, place, or thing.
It's probably the reason I'm Catholic today since I had the experience the first time I walked across the threshold of a Catholic church (Blessed Sacrament in Seattle) as a college student. I *felt* immediately that there was a presence of God there that I had not experienced elsewhere - and I'd been in church most of my life.
I didn't have a clue what "Blessed Sacrament" meant and I would have believed it if you had explained it to me, but I recognized the Real Presence immediately.
So began my career of intercessory prayer in Catholic churches as I moved about the globe. As one friend warned me "if you don't stop praying in Catholic churches, you are going to become Catholic, y',know."
Ridiculous. Or so I thought.
You're very fortunate to have these experiences. Some of us have to travel on "blind faith" as it were, knowing and trusting that God is there, but not necessarily "feeling"it.
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