Day 19: How Can This Be?

How can this be: that a day worker, a homeless man, a convicted criminal, a man accused of eating and drinking too much and too joyfully for polite taste, a King, and a plain old friend is all just one person?

How can this be: that this man — a God-man conceived by the Holy Spirit — rose from the dead and appears to people all over the world in a little white host?

How can this be? Such are the words of Mary to the Archangel Gabriel at the Annunciation. Such are the questions that have pinged around my brain over the last few years.

This past year, I read through the Gospels and Acts for the first time. (Only took 24 years to do so.) One of my main takeaways was how often those Jesus encountered are left astonished, seized with fear, trembling with amazement, receive great miracles, are scandalized, or want to arrest and/or kill Him. There aren’t a lot of mundane interactions with Jesus, that’s for sure.

I feel like there are a lot of mundane interactions with Jesus in my own life and in the parishes I have been a part of during my life. As a missioner in Milwaukee and now a volunteer with DC Service Corps, I’ve been thrust into situations that are stranger and more bewildering — and in that sense, more on par with Gospel living.

Before I decided on joining the DC Service Corps, I had discerned helping a Jesuit ministry called Thrive for Life, a program that runs jail and prison ministry and runs intentional communities for formerly incarcerated men pursuing higher education. The organization invited me to visit their operation in New York City. I went to mass on Riker’s Island, in Thrive for Life’s administrative office and its residential community. What a handful of days of receiving Jesus in wildly different settings that was.

One of the nights in New York City, there was a dinner with some of the formerly incarcerated men, the Jesuits on staff, a religious sister from Argentina, lay staff from all over the world, and a guy from the Knights of Malta delegation at the UN. I was also there, wondering how the heck I ended up in such a scene. In my period of reflection after leaving New York, I was struck that this was not a group that would ever come together naturally. Only supernaturally could this group come together, if only for one night. 

The Holy Spirit — the Spirit that conceived Jesus in the womb of a Virgin, the Spirit that transforms bread and wine into flesh and blood — continues working in this world, in my world. 

At Little Friends for Peace, on Thursdays I help lead peace circles with men who are homeless at a site called the Father McKenna Center; immediately after that is over, we rush over to a Montessori school to lead peace class for kindergarteners. It’s a full day, working with six- and sixty-year-olds. 

I often ask myself: How can this be my life? 

My answer: Because the Holy Spirit has made it so.

Question for Reflection: When has the Holy Spirit led you to unexpected places or given you unexpected blessings?

How can this be: That I have been called to help lead a peace class virtually for young students in Uganda? (Photo courtesy of Passion Aid Foundation Africa)