The other day I posed you with a question on whether you pray to your God or not. I suppose that whether we realise it or not most of us think that God does answer us when we pray to Him….possibly not in the way we expect. I can say that when I did pray to Him many times to show Himself to me He probably did so in ways I was not ready to see him in.
I have come to realise that He often shows Himself physically through other people. When I least expect Him to be around.As say in the person of a nuisance neighbour or someone I wouldn't like to be seen in company with. If I believe that God has made me in His image and likeness then I tell myself that I must also be prepared to see others in the same light, because they too have been made in His image and likeness. But how difficult that is to act on. Probably the world would be a much better place if we really believed in it. The problem is that sometimes my mind won't allow me to get accustomed to my neighbour’s whims and character and I still find myself about to lose my cool, as they say. Will I then be sending Jesus packing too in the process?
But does God actually show himself to us? Does He ever allow us to have a glimpse of Himself or is that only reserved for the very saintly? I can say though that recently when I was working with the sick and handicapped in the baths in Lourdes, France, I felt very strongly that He had physically shown Himself to me.
You must first understand the concept of these baths. It was the Blessed Mother’s wish expressed at Lourdes that the faithful wash and cleanse themselves from the outside and inside by bathing in these special baths and drinking from the natural spring water that she had indicated. This stream has not dried up yet in over 150 years since St Bernadette had dug where Our Lady had shown and also commanded that pilgrims should bathe in this way as a symbol of their wish for personal conversion.
Anyway, back to God. On one occasion we were preparing a frail, thin old man to be immersed in the bath to fulfill his wish to obey His Heavenly Mother. This frail old man couldn’t walk so we had to carry him down to the water on a collapsible leather chair. But as he sat there waiting his turn, slumped on his chair, naked except for a loincloth for his own dignity, I suddenly saw him as the image of Christ awaiting to be crucified. It was like a deja vue, one second it was there then gone away. But the memory remained implanted.
Some time later that morning, we had prepared another man to be bathed. This one was lying on a stretcher and couldn’t even sit down. Between the six men in the cubicle we diligently and delicately took off his clothes and with great dignity we prepared him to be transferred on to a special stretcher using a largish sheet so that we could carry him down to the water. As we lifted him up in the sheet I had another sort of deja vue….it was like I saw Christ wrapped in the cloth being carried into the tomb from which he was going to rise again shortly.
Would this man now rise again, cured. after his bath? I won't say that this thought didn't pass my mind but there was no need. His faith had carried him through it already….and he amazed us all in the process…because when we prayed together for his needs he asked God that if He was going to heal him through this bath then he wished this healing be given to another person for whom he was praying in his heart! Wow. Could I ever think of being like this frail sick man?
But then, last April, WHAM there was my answer. I "met" Chris Gollon, the renowned British painter (no, not in real life but in an article about his work in "Messenger of St Anthony"!). Well, Chris, a non practicing Christian at the time, was commissioned to paint the 14 Stations of the Cross....that's Christ's passion...for the Church of St John on Bethnal Green, London, UK, the result of which is that they are bring people back into the church! Yet Chris (photo with his XVI Station work, Jesus laid in the Sepulchre) explains that being non-practicing for 20 years or so "you will understand how I actually became emotional from time to time while painting the Stations, and they have had a similar effect on people who were not going to church any more".Asked if there had been any moment when he felt God was very close to him, Chris replied positively. "This was when my daughter who is now in excellent health, was ill when she was young. She was suffering from syringomyelia, which in those days was a very severe illness often leading to death. Through a series of coincidences, we found the only person in Britain who had cured a little girl before my daughter. And then my own daughter was cured and to us it was as if that surgeon was God's instrument on earth. It was a magnificent feeling".
Yet he said that his favourite of the Station painting was the Xth, Christ stripped and alone before being nailed to the Cross. "When I was doing that painting I was aware that I was trying to give the impression that Jesus was very lonely and possibly frightened too. Of course, an artist's occupation is a very lonely one; I can probably go weeks without seeing another soul. That painting is now a self portrait, but perhaps unwittingly, unconsciously, I have painted something of myself in it".And then it hit me again....there He was, once again, staring at me in the face. My Lourdes deja vue of a few years back...the frail old man patiently sitting there waiting his turn, slumped on his chair, naked except for a loincloth for his own dignity. My idea of Christ awaiting to be crucified. Just as Chris perceived Him in his mind's eye!
