These people were the evidence that God believed in me.
Chapter 2
Do Fall in Love with Jesus
“YOU MEAN YOU LITERALLY PUT YOUR lips on it and kissed it? A piece of wood?”
Jack nodded and munched on a French fry.
“This isn’t some weird metaphor for what you were thinking,” I asked, “or for what you wanted to do?”
He shook his head.
“You actually walked up to this cross and you kissed it?”
He nodded again. “Yup,” he said. He ate another fry.
I took a sip of coffee and absorbed the story and the image. This was weird. Catholics were weird.
“Why?”
“Well,” he said, “it’s like this. On Good Friday, Catholics always do this. They have a service—I mean, we have this service. I guess I’m one of them again. It’s not a Mass, ’cuz it’s the only day of the year when we don’t have Mass—but it’s this service where we have veneration of the cross. Do you want me to explain veneration?”
“Please.”
“Okay,” he said. “Veneration means showing respect … honor. We’re honoring Jesus’ sacrifice for us by showing honor to the cross, because it was on the cross that he died for us, right? So kissing the cross is kissing the symbol of his sacrifice.”
“Do you have to kiss it? What if you feel weird about kissing a piece of wood?”
Jack smiled. “You don’t have to kiss it. There are other ways to show respect. You can genuflect, or you can bow, or you can just touch it if you want to. But I wanted to kiss it. I couldn’t wait to kiss the cross.”
I shook my head, not fully able to grasp this idea. Kissing an inanimate object. In public. It was too far out of the realm of my experience; it smacked of “cult.” Jack was going through a program at his church to learn, or relearn, about his faith as he made his way back to the Catholic Church he had left behind. Although I found most of what he told me incredibly odd, I was simultaneously intrigued.
In the glowing fluorescent light of a Perkins restaurant, Jack’s story about feeling the power of God by kneeling down and placing his lips on a wooden cross unsettled me. This wasn’t merely a pleasant little ceremony or a way to be politely respectful. He felt something. Deeply. Every time he talked about God these days—every time he talked about Jesus—it was like he was head over heels in love.
Better Than a Top Ten List
Whenever I see people immersed in things they’re passionate about, I’m struck by the joy they radiate. Whether their passion is for art, sports, music, theater, hobbies, job, or family, it’s irresistible and draws me in. Passion is magnetic. And when we encounter a soul who has genuinely fallen in love with Jesus, we encounter the most powerful kind of attraction. We don’t even label what these people do as evangelization—they may not even be conscious of what they’re doing. They’re simply emanating love for God.
It makes sense. Compare deep, true love for Jesus with marriage: If we want the world to know how marvelous the sacrament of marriage is, we hope to show them happy Catholic marriages. If we want the world to know how great Jesus is, we want them to see our love for him. If we want to transmit the idea that faith is life-changing, the world needs to see Jesus changing our lives. That kind of passion and relationship with the Lord is a far better witness than a top ten list about “Why Faith is a Good Thing.”
Feelings, of course, can’t be dictated. “Fall in love with Jesus” is not a prescription that we can run out and fill. But we can open ourselves to him and his love for us. If we’ve never felt that way before, we can start in a simple place. Take a look at people who radiate love for God. What are they doing that we’re not? What’s different about their prayer lives, their reading habits, their relationships? What can we, using their habits and practices as a starting point, begin doing that will ignite the flame?
Smitten by His Love
Pope Francis has said: “When one finds themselves with Jesus, they live the wondrous awe of that encounter and feel the need to look for him in prayer, in the reading of the Gospels. They feel the need to adore him, to know him and feel the need to announce him.”4
The Holy Father also reminds us that Jesus poured out everything for us, that true love is complete self-donation: “The cross of Christ invites us also to allow ourselves to be smitten by his love, teaching us always to look upon others with mercy and tenderness.”5
There was a time in my life when I couldn’t imagine such things. Falling in love with God and announcing him to everyone? Embracing the cross and allowing suffering to soften my heart? It was inscrutable to me, as impenetrable as Jack’s kissing of the cross sounded before I was a believer. When I genuinely began searching for faith, however, it was people who fervently loved God who attracted me. I can only hope and pray to become like my role models, people who have discovered, as Pope Francis said, the need to adore and announce Jesus, and share the reality of his love.
Differently Happy
My friend Liz, who converted to Catholicism after years of knowing vibrant, joyful Catholics, told me one day that her friend Sister Marie Therese “loves Jesus so much that it just pops out when you’re around her. It’s the way she talks, the way she acts—it’s who she is. I became an oblate of the Benedictines before I ever became a Catholic, due to her example.”
Like Liz, long before I was a Catholic, I noticed that some people seemed to have deeper pockets of joy than others. They were not lecturers, scolders, sermonizers, or judges. They had something I couldn’t put my finger on, something down to earth but otherworldly. They emanated a sweet fragrance that I eventually found myself wanting to breathe in.
“There is a woman in my Spirit of Motherhood group,” my friend Renee told me, “and I just love her. She is very faithful and happy, and that shows itself in joy every time I see her. She makes everyone around her feel loved. It’s something you cannot fake.”
My friend Holly told me about a similar woman who had a profound effect on her. Holly was raised in the Presbyterian Church and didn’t embrace Catholicism until several years after she married Jack. Sometime in the first few years of her marriage, Holly met Pat. “She was first a stranger, then became a friend, and now we call her our godmother,” Holly said. “Pat spoke to the youth group we helped with, and she shared story after story about miraculous things God had done in her life. I was amazed at her faith through all of those stressful, scary situations.” Pat’s life was far from perfect, had, in fact, never been easy, but she possessed a light that shone brightly on my friend.
Jen, another friend, grew up with such light. “My mom’s faith is very much her walk with her friend, Jesus. She speaks to him, and about him, in a very informal, personal way. She’s spent a lot of time listening for God…. I’ve always been attracted to the way she leans on the Lord.”
Another friend, Karl, who grew up in a non-Catholic home, said his parents always surrounded their family with passionate Christians. As an adult, Karl converted to Catholicism, but he’s always been grateful for a childhood that was populated with genuine disciples of Jesus who had a powerful impact on his faith.
These were the kinds of people I found myself returning to again and again when the sand was shifting beneath my feet. I craved a taste of what was on their plate, because they seemed so differently happy. Their joy didn’t originate in material goods, or careers, or in worldly possessions. What they possessed was something above and beyond. One day, I finally had to admit that I wanted it, too.
Stir Us Up
Years