Matthew 18:20

On the occasion of my graduation from eighth grade at my Catholic elementary school my classmates voted me most likely to become a nun.  I already had one nun in the family, but unlike my aunt I did not receive a divine calling to the sisterhood.  I had not found Jesus yet.  Of course I knew Jesus; He was ever present in my home and in my school, hanging on a crucifix in every classroom and living in the tabernacle behind the church altar.  I also loved Him and recognized Him as my God and savior.  I just had not found Him yet.

A few years later when I was in college I found Jesus while wading in the water in Ocho Rios, Jamaica.  I stepped on something sharp and hard and reached down in search of the hidden treasure.  It was Jesus hanging on a corroded blue plastic crucifix buried in the sand.  I pulled Him out of the Caribbean and brought Him home with me.  I also found Jesus once in a drawing I made of Him on a small scrap of paper.  It was an amazing likeness to something Da Vinci might have painted.  I slid Him under my sister’s pillow as she lay in a coma a few months before she met Him in person.  

My cousin, the one I wasn’t afraid to ride with when I was five, once found Jesus in a parking lot.  This time He was disguised in gold filigree and fit to hang on a chain about the neck.

Jesus has shown Himself to me in many odd and wonderful ways such as outlines in the natural striations on granite floors, images in stained glass windows, and eclectic statuary.  Just yesterday I found Him in many different forms in an old jewelry box I rummaged through in search of that corroded blue plastic crucifix I brought home from Jamaica 29 years ago. 

A person of Catholic upbringing is expected to meet Jesus in the sacraments they receive as rites of faith.  Even though I made my first communion when I was eight my first real encounter with the Son of Man was 20 years later in a Eucharistic celebration in my sister’s hospital room after she awoke from her coma.  The hospital’s resident priest came to her room to give her communion and offered it to those of us with her as well.  I felt Jesus standing with us that evening, as two or more of us were gathered in His name, so there was He in our midst.  Jesus was physically present in that moment as sure as I live and breathe.

Since that night I have met Him many more times, but most recently, in a twist of ironic fate, I met Jesus at a convent of all places.  My classmates’ votes did not send me there, but instead I went to celebrate my aunt’s calling and 70^th year anniversary as a Sister of Mercy.  The ceremonial mass was held in the chapel at the Mercy Center retreat house in St. Louis.  The round chapel there is ringed by incredible stained-glass windows portraying the corporal and spiritual works of mercy the sisters have vowed to uphold.  I found Him there in glass portraiture and I found Him carved in exquisite marble.  But I met Him in the voices of the nuns who had gathered for the celebration as they sang the Suspice during the few moments of silent prayer following communion.  The unrehearsed, spontaneous harmony of the group of women sitting throughout the chapel resonated with angelic content.  I sat with my eyes closed and allowed the music to settle in my soul and my spirit both soared and rested in peaceful synchronicity.  

It was then, during that ardent song, when two or more of us were gathered in His name, was He again there in our midst.