"Catching God."

Recently, Ms. Immaculee Illibagiza spoke at St. John's High School in Shrewsbury, MA, telling her story of survival from the 1994 Genocide by hiding 91 days in a small bathroom with six other women in the home of a protestant minister. That story is spectacular enough, but even more astounding is the lesson of forgiveness that she learned and is spreading world wide by her books and lectures. "if you want to catch God," she said, " you have to love everyone and forgive everybody." This is not just a glib truism, but comes from a heart that had to be touched by God, for although she survived, most of her family did not. She learned in that confined space that the only way her heart could be free was to forgive those who killed her family and so many others.
The same theme weaves its way through the popular musical, Les Miserables. As Jean Val Jean was forgiven, so he vowed to live a life of forgiveness and compassion, learning that to love another is to "see the face of God." Is not this why we were created? Yet we might stubbornly cling to grudges, or prideful self-pity, or animosity that separates us from others. Let us listen to those who have suffered and learned the way of forgiveness and with them, "catch God".
Bro. Rene