Sometimes the simplest messages carry the most precious spiritual meaning. That truth applies to words heard two summers ago by a young woman college student from the United States who was working in New Zealand on assignment for a student-run travel publication.
One Sunday, she felt homesick and went to church in the town where she was staying. Her feelings about being away from home were soon soothed when she heard the message from the pastor. (I have this account from my own pastor, Monsignor Dennis Sheehan who recently told it to a group of new collegians, their parents, and others in our congregation.)
Addressing his congregation, the New Zealand pastor made three points. First, you are welcome. This he intended to be, not just for the people as a group, but for each individual. He wanted them to feel that, wherever they had come from, whatever the color of their skin or economic standing, they belonged there. The college student felt this pledge directed to her and she took comfort in it. The words made her feel at home, something she longed to feel at that time.
Secondly, the pastor told his listeners, “You are loved.” Again, he meant that each individual there was loved by God and by the community of faith. Each person could count on being appreciated for herself or himself, not because of their status in society or for some other distinction.
The pastor’s third point was, “You are needed.” This adds another dimension to the love pledged earlier. It meant that people were also valued for the personal gifts that they brought to church. Being loved themselves, they were now urged to reach out to others in need.
Clearly, this was a wise pastor who knew how to speak to people’s deepest needs. His was an approach that emphasized the positive and responded to the need everyone feels to be appreciated.
Being welcome, being loved, and being needed are precious human gifts and also find their roots in spiritual attitudes. When extended as wishes to others, they give evidence of something that goes beyond the surface of human life.
A time when I felt overwhelmed with hospitality takes me back in memory to Mexico City. There on a first-time visit I was welcomed into the home of a friend who had been a college classmate. I cannot forget the words he then spoke to me: “Mi casa es su casa” (“My home is your home”), the first time anyone had said that to me.
And he followed through, giving me the best bedroom in his house, serving me delicious meals, and plying me with heady margaritas to drink. From the graceful way he made me feel welcome, I knew myself, after many years of separation, still his dear friend.
Many experiences of feeling loved stay lodged in memory. Among them, I will cite only one – the birth of my daughter. That ecstatic event evidenced for me an altogether special gift from a loving God who gave to my wife and me, in our mature years, a child healthy and full of promise.
The experience of feeling needed also has been mine many times. Probably that awareness reached fullest expression on the day of my ordination to the priesthood. In that rite, the community of faith was announcing that my services were recognized and accepted. Even though many years later I decided to leave this first calling, the memory of being needed remains for me a source of value.
As a reader of these words, you also can go back in memory to your own peak times when you have known yourself to be welcome, to be loved, and to be needed. If you sift these experiences for their deeper meaning, you can perhaps discover their spiritual roots. Deep down, they are signs of our value as human beings. Our lives do indeed go beyond appearances and have in them a meaning and a destiny that ennoble us.
The New Zealand pastor spoke a message simple yet profound. He also expressed an agenda for his community of faith –making everyone indeed feel welcome, loved, and needed. If we ourselves could adopt that triple agenda in our dealings with other people, would we not go a long way toward enriching our own lives as well?
Richard Griffin