Loving the Person of Jesus Christ

Loving the Person of Jesus Christ
Shuffling along the Green Cabrini Projects of Chicago travels one of the unseen, the one avoided, the one unclean, one unloved.
He/she, glimpsed from the train window, is passed by every day by you and me on our way to self-important work.
He/she reads the streets for pennies, drugs, leftovers from the night before.
We continue to peruse our Tribune, perhaps even a Magnificat meditation.
And we have passed Him by.

A miracle, we fantasize, would strengthen our faith.
Yet the wonder our hands, our hearts could render lies just outside.
Separated from each other by a solid pane of glass we have constructed for protection against “such people”.
We have missed the person of Jesus Christ.
The miracle of His precious body has called us and we have not answered His call.

A piece of glass can shatter by lifting a hand in sorrow;
One can acknowledge pride, selfishness, yes, even self-sufficiency
And stop the train of wrong doing; of seeing only self- instead of love for one another.
Love needs knowledge; just as both need generosity.
One finds the other; together they find the third.

These three are stronger than our ideas of self, of love, of inaction toward another.
They’re pulsating, penetrating through the folds of cloak which hide one’s true human self.
Hands once holding cold stone become only grains of sand within Love’s strong embrace.
You call, we respond and behold, a miracle appears
Our eyes, our heart are open; we can no longer hide.

To walk with You in all your children- whether homeless, brokenhearted, even addicted,
To answer Jesus’ call, we must become another You; not another me.
To love as You love, to erase all barriers which we erect, to move forward toward perfect love-
We must leave behind a train of self, filled only with misery and pain;
Then we will find You in our midst today.