This content has been archived. It may no longer be relevant
People today are crying out for recognition. Each of us wants to be a person among other persons. We want to be noticed, not in any ostentatious way, not because we might have or not have money or any other possession or quality, but just because we are human beings, persons.
Each of us is on a pilgrimage, seeking to encounter others like ourselves, others who have the same needs. The greatest need of all is the need to be loved. But we pass by one another without noticing, without stopping, without the slightest sign of recognition.
This is why modern man daily comes closer and closer to despair, and why he frantically continues to search for someone who will love him.
The search is really for God. But God isn’t easily found if he isn’t reflected in the eyes of another person.
It is time that we Christians begin to take notice of each person we meet. Each person is a brother or sister in Christ. Each person must be “recognized.” Each person must be given a token of friendship and love, be it only a smile, a nod of the head.
Sometimes this might require the total availability of one person to another if we are to fulfill a particular person’s hunger for God. Such love and recognition must always be given with deep reverence, irrespective of the “status” of the person encountered.
Reverence, understanding and hospitality of the heart—these are the immediate, intense needs of people today. Are we Christians going to wake up and act as Christians, incarnating the law of love into our daily lives in real depth?
Or are we going to compromise and allow one another to continue to plunge into our dark nights looking for someone to say to us: “My brother, my sister, I am here. Come. I have water and a towel. Sit down. Let me wash your tired feet that have pilgrimaged for so long. Yes, I am here. I know you. I revere you. I recognize you as my brother or sister. I love you.”
These meetings are the true crossroads of time and history. When we meet there, will we act as Christians or not?
Excerpted and adapted from Gospel Without Compromise, (1989) MH Publication, pp. 92-93, out of print.
