I am graced with several friends who are in there own ways truly saintly. Some in ways about which I can freely talk, like my good friend 'The Shepherd of the Moss' - a priest in a tough parish, doing work only he could do - quietly, and unassumingly. The sort of person the church should make bishop, but lacks the Wisdom so to do. Others whom carry at times intolerable burdens known to very few, yet whose lives are pure gift. All of whom get on with that hidden work that really makes a difference.
Throughout the ministry of Jesus he repeatedly speaks in veiled [sic] terms. From the parables which are hidden messages, heard yet not understood, to his reuqests oft ignored to tell no-one, to his counsel on piety that is in secret.
This doesn't please his hearers and often doesn't impress itself upon our consciousness either. We want the visible, the earthshaking, the dramatic, the spectacular, the successful, the powerful - and yet we follow one who eschewed all of this.
I wonder if we really get it?
Thomas Merton suggested that there were probably only two people in the world who really prayed and that all of creation was held together by their work. I think he got it.
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