Bearing Witness

I am fascinated by minor Gospel characters. These people — the rich young man, the adulterous woman, the teachers at the temple — share the stage with Jesus only briefly. They bear passing but powerful witness to crucial moments of his earthly ministry. They breathe the air he breathes. They hear the sound of his voice. Some of them feel the touch of his skin.

And then they go on with their lives and disappear into obscurity. They become just another one of us.

I think of the child who sat in Jesus’ lap while he said those famous words: “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.”

What did the boy think? Did he understand the words, or did he only know that they were gently spoken? Did he only think to himself how kind was the face of this man, and how consoling and warm his embrace?

I picture this child growing up. Perhaps he married and loved his wife and children. Perhaps he was happy, or perhaps he was not. Perhaps he became wealthy or was even wealthy to begin with. Perhaps he, like so many other children of that era, had only a very short life, and returned quickly to the arms that enveloped him that day in Capernaum.

We don’t know. But we know he was there: he saw Christ, he felt him, he heard him. We sigh to think of it. How lucky. If only we could, too. Then it would be easier. Then we could be holy.

But we are all this child in Capernaum. We are all the woman at the well. We are all the centurion at the cross. Every time we kneel before the Host and hear the words “This is my Body,” we occupy the same earthly time and space as the Messiah, and he fixes upon us the same gaze he fixed upon them.

We all bear witness.

We receive him, and then we go back to our lives, our ordinary lives.

Do we carry him with us? Do we dare?

“I will praise your name, O Lord, for its goodness.” — Psalm 54:6

©LPi