During our Pentecost celebration this past week we hosted many Marianist volunteers at our liturgy and brunch. The volunteers consisted of so many generous and helpful people. They have assisted us each week doing countless tasks. Whether it is cleaning the Emmanuel Retreat House, sorting through books in the Library, organizing Parents Club activtities, organizing the Alumni Parents, creating order at school events as security or countless other tasks, these volunteers offer us support and generous service. They are truly an integral part of the Marianist family.In our Pentecost liturgy, Father Albert quoted Henri Nouwen who once said: "By touching the center of our solitude, we sense that we have been touched by loving hands." Father Albert continued in his homily, "Deep inside each of us, like a brand, there is a place where God has touched, caressed, and kissed us. Long before memory, long before we ever remember touching or loving or kissing anyone or anything, or being touched by anything or anybody in this world, there is a different kind of memory, the memory of being gently touched by loving hands. When our ear is pressed to God's heart - to the breast of all that is good, true, and beautiful - we hear a certain heartbeat and we remember, remember in some inchoate place, at a level beyond thought, that we were once gently kissed by God."
This is truly what is deepest within each one of us.
He reminded us that we were once touched by hands far gentler and more loving than our own. The memory of that touch is a brand - warm, dark, gentle. To enter that memory is to lean on the breast of Christ, just as the beloved John, the Apostle, did at the last supper. From that place, with our ear on Christ's heart, we have the truest perspective on our world.
