Running to be God's Love

God can and will bring good out of anything.

My closest friends have heard me spout this time and time again. The kiddos in my eight weeks of Vision groups have gotten it from me during small-group time. My students will inevitably hear it at some point. I'll assuredly work it into my talks as I get the opportunity to go on retreat with the different ages of students here at the high school where I work.

This is basically the core of my daily faith. It may not be the topic sentence in The Catechism, but it's the precept I return to time and time again. It comes from my belief in a God who is thoroughly and completely of God of love and the God who is Love, a God who is so good and is Good, a God who is the Light that no darkness can overcome. He is the One who can overpower, overwhelm, overcome, and defeat any evil that rears its head in this world of freedom that he gave us. Though the Devil chose to disobey God and leads us to temptation, no evil in the world is greater than the Good that trumps everything.

This piece of my faith sustains my hope and consoles me in times of need. It tells me what kind of God I believe in, what kind of God is here among us and watching over us.

When my girlfriend is hunkering down against the stresses of a rough exam week and pausing her search for the next step in living out her vocation, I know that the Love I mediate to her from God through our relationship will highlight the good, mitigate the bad, and shine Light across our world.

When my parents have been unemployed amid a crappy job market and a steady stream of bills that carry no sympathy for financial difficulty, including tuition payments to amazing schools, I know that God is gracing my parents with renewed faith, that He is finding them even before they search for Him anew, and that I can find peace and comfort in the stronger bonds that emerge between God and my family.

When I see Facebook links to articles from Irish newspapers reporting that a friend of mine and my community in Wexford has gone missing, when I begin to fear the worst, and when his death and suicide become reality, I retain hope that an outpouring of love and support will flow onto the parish and his family, that God will be ever present among them to console their loss and increase their hope in his rest with Christ.

I believe this piece of my faith will come in handy endlessly, an insight that can illuminate any dark situation that may come to me. I am lucky to be predisposed with a strong will power and sturdy self-control so that I can handle tough things with more ease than others might. But I appreciate that healing and consolation requires action on our part, too; we must seek God out to discover His abiding presence with us and for us.

Another way I think of this element of my faith is by imagining a metaphor: I think of it as being almost like a race. When something bad or evil happens in my world, I know God can and will find good in it or bring good from it. So, why not race Him? What if I, allowing a proper moment for grief or emotional hardship, race God to the good? What if I try to discover the good that will come from an apparently evil situation as fast as God does?

It is kind of a silly metaphor, and when I pitch it to friends, I do so knowing that it's a strange concept. Until one day at school here, I saw it happen, before my eyes, in literal reality.

It was our first Monday Mass of the year, a new weekly institution at our school, and we were trying it out for the first time. It's tradition at our school that the school community recites the Prayer for Generosity by St. Ignatius Loyola together near the end of mass. So, we thought, after receiving communion, why not have the students remain on the gym floor rather than going back to the bleachers? We could have them encircle the altar, put their arms around each other, and recite the prayer together in a a more visual, physical manifestation of community. Pretty sweet, right!?

The problem was partly practical, partly teenagical.

First off, the prayer is written on the wall, so the circle of arms-around-each-other breaks down when they're all facing in the same direction. Dang. Well they'll figure it out and include each other well enough, right? Students at our school have a strong reputation for taking care of each other most of the time.

Unfortunately, the way the formation broke, a few teenage boys aced a girl out of their love chain. As we were about to start the prayer, she was standing inside the ring of students and teachers, on her own, about to pray for generosity in the context of having been selfishly excluded.

Enter Miss D.

Dear Miss D. doesn't go a moment in these halls and rooms without being mega sensitive to the challenges of being 14-18 and female. This moment at Mass was no exception. Before the thoughts of exclusion could rush in and sour this poor student, Miss D ran -- ran -- across the circle and threw her arm around this girl as we began to pray.

God can and will find good from evil situations. When we step up and choose to answer the call to holiness, we embrace our capacity to be mediators of God's love and grace. We realize our awesome ability present in our free will to choose love.

I watched the decision get made. I watched the action get taken. I saw love and grace mediated in front of my face. Be the love of Christ for another person. Shine Light into your world, and be God's love.