Every gesture of love and kindness points towards God

Below is the 'Thinking Anew' column in today's Irish Times.

Michael Commane
It’s the end of May, university exams are coming to an end, Junior and Leaving Certificate examinations are about to begin followed by the  long school summer holidays.

Young people are  heading off to work all over the world. It’s that time of year when many parents  say goodbye to their children as they set of off into  the great unknown. Airports, rail and bus stations everyday have their quota of people parting company and other people returning into the arms of those they know and love.

It’s probably one of the defining  aspects of arrival and departure venues seeing people express their emotions in such a public way when they are greeting family and friends. Departures can be less euphoric.

The next few months will see much coming and going. Along with young people heading for jobs in every direction, people will also be going on holidays, courses, exchanges and all sorts of adventures. The world is always on the move but never  more so  than over the next few months.

And then in late August, early September the little four and five year-olds will head off to school for the first time. It’s much easier these days but still, there will be the occasional tear as children  set off for ‘grown-up’ school for the first time. And the tears will not just be the prerogative of the children. Parents too will be emotionally ‘upset’ to see their tiny children depart from them in such a serious way. It heralds the beginning of the severing of that most intimate of relationships.

We all want to be part of someone or something. We all want to be part of a family. Indeed, in so many ways our families are part of the stuff that make  up our identity. In a lesser sense the organisations, the groups, the clubs we belong to also play a part in who we are. But like everything in our lives that too can have negative aspects to it. There might be times when we are far too slow to greet the new person, the ‘stranger’ into our midst. There is that most horrible of expressions  - ‘he/she is not one of us’.

Poet John Donne’s reminder that ‘No man is an island’ may have become an overworked cliché, but the meaning still stands true. One way or another, we yearn to be “connected”.  We  Irish pride ourselves on our ‘networking’ skills.

But there is a nasty underside to this,  the person who is unwanted, unloved, abandoned. We are all too aware of those shocking scenes of rows of beds filled with tiny children in orphanages where they were inhumanely treated. It happened, in happened it Ireland and still happens around the world.

In tomorrow's Gospel (John 14: 15 - 21) Jesus tells us he will not leave us orphans. He goes on to say that God is with us and that God loves us. Of course that’s not always easy to see and get a handle on but it is our faith. Every single one of us is loved by God. We are loveable.

The Beatles told us, that all we need is love. They got it in one. Yes, all the different expressions of love we see and experience are moments to be treasured but is it possible that they are just tiny images of the love that God showers on us? As Christians we believe that is exactly the case. And the challenge to believe in that is surely a life-long journey, with all its ups and downs.

Every gesture of love points towards God and making us part of the communion of saints. That includes the loved ones we greet and say farewell to in the noisy bus station,  and the beggar outside “hustling”  for  the price of a hostel bed for the night.