I have been meditating lately on how we are all images of God. We are all made in His image. Red, yellow, black or white, we are all reflections of our Creator. In Genesis, we are told how He created humankind in His own image. It brings me back to this, "and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 'Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?' He said to him, ' "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." On these two commandments hang all the law and prophets.' Matthew 22:35-40 So, essentially, we are called to see God in all those around us and love them selflessly. This can truly be a test of our faith because if we wholly and faithfully love our God, then it should reflect in our treatment of those around us. I use this with my children often. I encourage them to see their siblings as images of God and to love them selflessly. I will jokingly say to them, "That is not your little brother on the potty waiting to be wiped, that is Jesus!" It often makes those unpleasant tasks so much easier because we are doing them out of love for our Lord.
I have often been asked by acquaintances how I get my children to be so helpful. This is the result of years of training. We are called to, "Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray." Proverbs 22:6 I do not encourage them to seek employment in their high school years, but to seek service opportunities. Our oldest son, Matt, just finished high school with over six hundred service hours. Society encourages our teenagers to be incredibly focused on themselves. We have taught them from a very young age to have the heart of a servant and to be focused on the needs of others. Our Savior became a servant and sacrificed His life on the cross for us, so who are we to consider ourselves to be too good to humble ourselves.
Most years we attend the March for Life in Washington, DC. It is held on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade which is in January. Thousands and thousands of people invade our nation's capital and stand around for hours in what is usually the freezing cold waiting for the march to start. Before the march, we usually try to attend the youth mass held at the Verizon Center. One year, Steve Agrisano, who is a Christian music performer shared a story told to him by a close friend. This friend felt called to go and serve with Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta. He was disappointed to discover that Mother was out of the country when he arrived. He spent two weeks helping in one of the houses, but had never gone out into the street to do direct care of the poor. On his last day in Calcutta, there was a knock on the door to his room and he opened it and was surprised to see Mother Teresa standing there. She told him to come with her and he obediently followed. She took him out into the streets of Calcutta. They quickly came upon a man lying in his own filth in the street. He appeared close to death. Mother asked Steve's friend to pick the beggar up and despite his reservations, he obeyed. When they arrived back, Mother Teresa instructed him to bathe the man and make him comfortable. He gently bathed the man's emaciated body and picked him up out of the tub and wrapped him in a towel. He looked into the man's face and the man opened his eyes for the first time and then it was no longer the beggar's face he saw, but the face of Christ. He was shaken and overwhelmed by what he had seen. He sat in a rocking chair and rocked the man and as he did so, the poor man took his last breath and died. Mother Teresa came back in the room. She looked at him still holding the poor beggar in his lap and said, "You saw Him, didn't you?" His reply was a simple, "Yes." May we all be called to see the face of Christ in those around us.
