by John Looby SJ
Would receiving a letter from an old friend change your day? I remember someone once telling me how receiving such a letter brought a special blessing on his day. However sceptical I may have been then that receiving a letter might have such an effect, I remembered it recently when a letter came out of the past and my day was blessed indeed. He had been a pupil of mine for only one year close on forty years ago. He was quite clear about what I had taught him, and I could remember it well.
Now he finds his own sons studying almost exactly the same material, and realising how much that introduction to literature has meant to him over the years, he writes to me to thank me. You wonder how it happened that it meant so much to him, and not to many others. But then maybe it did. But why does he write to me now to tell me? Why does he bring a blessing on my day?
You will remember the parable of the sower who went out sowing seed. He seemed to waste a lot of seed scattering it on places where nothing could grow, but some fell on good soil and produced a great crop. Now Christ was telling his disciples that when they went out preaching a lot of what they would speak would be wasted, but some of it would be heard and believed. The point of the parable was that it wasn’t the efforts of the disciples that made the difference, but what God’s Spirit did through them. That is what brought the blessing on them that day.
Most people never realise the Spirit can speak through them: writing that letter, making a phone call, telling someone what they often thought of telling them but somehow never got around to telling them. Telling them what a difference they made to them at some time in their lives, maybe even years ago.
There is one particular moment when the Spirit will speak through you, and it is when you are with someone close to you who is dying. I remember I had just anointed a woman who had been in a coma for a few days and was almost at the point of death, when she suddenly became fully conscious and recognised those who were around her bed. Most of the family were overcome with emotion, but a daughter took her hand and told her how much they loved her. The old lady smiled beatifically and with that blessing went to meet her God.