Today’s find: Golden

It’s the oddest feeling, celebrating one’s 50^th anniversary of high school graduation. There’s a part of my brain that’s still 18 years-old, and it protests vociferously: “No…it can’t be 50! Twenty-five years…or 30, maybe. But half-a-century? That simply cannot be.”

But then, you go the reunion…and you find yourself in the company (ahem!) of old men. (“Men,” indeed, in my case. We had no female classmates at the prep seminary I attended 50+ years ago.)

Beloved men, but old nonetheless. 

One measure of the belovedness we share: Alums from different class years tend to intermix freely at the periodic reunions of our now-defunct small school. A class of ’73 guy is greeted warmly by the “kid” from the class of ’77, who was just a freshman at St. Henry’s Prep way-back-then. Because we lived together at the boarding school in the 1970s, we (mostly) learned to love each other – an affection that stands the test of time and distance.

And when we share stories of the decades that have intervened, it’s interesting to note how often that sense of “belovedness” has produced unexpected fruit for the life of the world. 

Few of us “high school seminarians” pursued religious life as a primary path forward. But God still touched our lives in a significant way, by giving us that gift of community way-back-when. We felt God’s love there, God’s saving and protecting power, God’s spirit of abundant generosity and service – even as teenagers. 

We likely would not have phrased it this elegantly, but our lives bear evidence that we knew something of the truth in Henri Nouwen’s words: “We have been chosen to make our own limited and very conditional love the gateway for the unlimited and unconditional love of God.” 

Chosen, as gateways of God’s love. I heard a lot of stories like that at my high school reunion yesterday: Old men, imperfect men, reflecting gratefully on how God’s grace had manifested itself in them…in their lives as husbands and fathers and friends and dedicated members of their communities. 

I wonder if Jesus had something like this in mind, when he (in today’s Gospel passage) takes a child in his arms, and then asks his disciples to take note: “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” 

It’s not a lesson that comes naturally to most of us. But 50 years on, I think I’m beginning to appreciate the wisdom in it. We were given a heaping-helping-slurp of God’s prodigal providence during our years at St. Henry’s … with the charge that we find a way to pass the knowledge of His abundant grace and mercy along to everyone we encounter. 

Now, as graybeards, we learn – in each other’s fond and affectionate company – that this charge remains evergreen: We share stories new and old, and in the process learn that we have a golden opportunity even today, even in our diminishment – a call to be ever-creative in our search for ways to keep sending God’s loving spirit into the world.

Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.

IHS