Affirmation

I just returned from a beach vacation where I luxuriated in reading 6 books. The most memorable was Tattoos on the Heart, a Jesuit priest’s experiences in working with the gangs of Los Angeles. Fr. Greg Boyle relates one remarkable story about gratitude, from his early days as a priest. Shortly after his ordination he was assigned to a small village in Bolivia where he was to learn Spanish along with his priestly duties. One day a lay worker asked him to go up to a Quechuan mountain village where they had not had Mass for over a decade. He was to say Mass in Spanish; laypeople would do the readings and deliver the homily in Quechuan. Partway up the mountain he discovered that he had forgotten his missal, and was too new at being a priest to be able to say the Mass from memory. He frantically began looking through his Spanish dictionary for the words of consecration, and wrote them on a slip of paper. When it came to his part of the Mass, he panicked and just kept holding up the bread and wine, repeating, poorly, those written words. He writes that it would be hard to imagine a Mass going worse, and he felt like the most miserable priest who had ever walked the earth! By the time he was set to leave he found that his ride down the mountain had already gone, and he was left with his backpack to make his own long way home on foot. Then a campesino, an old, wrinkled Quechuan, short of stature, poorly clothed and with brown, leathery skin, came to him and said in Spanish, “Thank you for coming.” And Fr. Greg writes, “Before I can speak, the old campesino reaches into the pockets of his coat and retrieves two fistfuls of multicolored rose petals. He’s on the tip of his toes and gestures that I might assist with the inclination of my head. And so he drops the petals over my head, and I am without words. He digs into his pockets again and manages two more fistfuls of petals. He does this again and again, and the store of red, pink and yellow rose petals seems infinite. I just stand there and let him do this, staring at my own huaraches, now moistened with my tears, covered with rose petals. Finally he takes his leave and I am left there alone, with only the bright aroma of roses…The God, who is greater than God, has only one thing on Her mind, and that is to drop, endlessly, rose petals on our heads. Behold the One who can’t take His eyes off of you.” Talk about affirmation! This is a God who loves us beyond our ability to imagine, and who brings people into our lives to remind us of that every day. Be that reminder for someone in your life.