Imagine walking down Wisconsin Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, today. A fellow, bearded, approaches you and says to you, "What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” (Matthew 16:26) What would be your reaction?
This is precisely what happened to Francis Xavier. Ignatius Loyola saw the young man, went up to him and put the question to him. Xavier could easily have walked away, thinking Ignatius was a crazed street preacher. However, that is not what happened. That one question changed one man's life as well as thousands of others who came to know the man after his ordination to the priesthood and ultimately his departing to mission lands.
No doubt all of us have moments when events seem so out of place. Many times we write them off as insignificant, repulsive, annoying etc. We don't pay too much attention to the event. Imagine what would have happened had Xavier walked away from Ignatius?
In fact it was not simply and encounter with Ignatius that Xavier had. It was an encounter with Jesus Christ. That is why we have to be opened and sensitive to statements that others might make to us. So many times God is speaking to us, calling us to follow him in a particular way ... through the questions or observations of others ... through unusual events that occur in one's life.
Quite frankly, these days of rest and recuperation have something of this encounter with Jesus Christ for me. I could easily pass off the sudden need for my by-pass surgery as simply a physical debilitation that happened to my heart. Indeed, it was an operation that was needed. However, it has become for me a calling, an encounter with Jesus Christ which I was not prepared to have. To be told that I should have been dead because of the condition with three blood vessels that were 99% blocked. God, in this event, surely has given me an opportunity to delve more deeply into the question mentioned in Sunday's reflection: Who am I? Who is God?
Events, hopefully not as serious as what I went through, may come into your lives. Like Francis Xavier, will you take the occasion to be open to God's voice, to God's calling, to his message? I can, you can walk away from his need to have us see him in a new way. If we do fail to see, to listen to what he is saying to you, to me, we are the ones who are the losers. We give up the opportunity to encounter God as never before.
We don't need scripture to assist our prayer today. Simply reflect on the life of Xavier and how a single sentence met an opened heart. Consider all that the Church has gained because one man said, I will follow you.
