19/10/2021
[This is a private members-only post. Please do not share or reproduce. I hope it becomes a source of deep reflection for you.]
Good morning, everybody! I hope you all had a great weekend! You know, it was quite an interesting experience going "viral" last August - and all because I had photos of my younger self on Facebook, which a priest-friend posted on his page. What I found most amusing about it was that people focused on external appearances - with people's comments ranging from the amusing (how supposedly presentable I appeared) to the downright distressing (not-so-decent proposals).
While I continue to live with the fallout of that experience, I'd like to share something else with you all today, something that hopefully puts into perspective the decision I made back then, not to speak to the press or media, and instead to allow that event to simply peter out slowly - if only to drive home the point that (i) it is the interior that matters most, not the exterior, and (ii) a priest's focus must always be on Christ, never himself.
With me in this photo was one of my best students at the seminary in Miami. I won't include his name because I don't want him to go through the same distress I went through (he'd go through more, I believe).
He was extremely, smart, came from a very good family, was hounded by women (and men) wherever he went. He was one of the top students in class, was Mr. Popular wherever he went, was athletic (was a skilled kite-surfer and was once seriously bitten by a shark) and just your all-around great guy who could have gone on to acting in movies had he chosen that path.
Before I left Miami, he and I had so many long discussions about life, his calling, his struggles, his plans and dreams for the future, and just about anything and everything a seminarian talks to his rector about.
He was supposed to be sent for further studies abroad because he had a brilliant mind. He was the 'golden boy' of his diocese, the apple of the eye of his parents; name it, this kid had it. Most of all, he had a great future in the Church. But he wanted more.
Like the wealthy young man in Scripture, he came to the Lord asking what more he could do to become truly happy. Unlike the young man in Scripture though, he did what the Lord asked him to do.
“If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor. Then come, follow me.” (Matthew 9:21)
And so, this young man who could have become anything he chose to be, is now walking the streets of a major city in the United States, with his fellow Franciscan brothers, tending to the needs of the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the destitute, the lonely, and the lost. He chose a life of poverty, dedicated to serving the poorest of the poor.
His Franciscan superiors, at first, didn't want to take him in, thinking he had so much going for him that he probably was just being too idealistic, which meant he wouldn't last or survive the kind of life they lived.
And so they asked me whether I would recommend him to join them when - compared to what life promised him - the Franciscan friars could only offer him a life lived in solitude, friendship with the Lord, and care and compassion for the poor.
I wrote them back and told them they should "see beyond the way he looks. the way he thinks and they way he carries himself" and see the heart of gold that was inside him.
They took him in. And he is now one of the youngest members of the Franciscan community in one of the largest cities in the States.
True beauty, true nobility, genuine greatness, lies within. The way we look, the way we are perceived externally - they're not unimportant, but they're not what's most important.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of the book, "The Little Prince" says in that work:
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye."
What's in your heart? If it's love, care, compassion, and concern for others, especially the least and lowliest among us, yours is a heart of gold, and you are, yourself, a precious gem, a treasure that "no moth can eat, no rust can corrode, and no thief can steal."
You are a truly beautiful creature of the Almighty, and his angels rejoice each time they think of you, and they will never leave you alone.
