Picture St Therese The Little Flower

We should see Jesus in everything

Some people's eyes are bigger than their stomachs and they fill their plates with more food than they can digest.

My eyes are bigger than my brain and I buy more books than I can digest.

The other day, on a whim, I bought a book of photographs showing all the places where the face of Jesus has been seen. His image has turned up everywhere from the surface of old scorched tortillas to the shadows on high mountain glaciers.

I'm even getting in on the act.

The other day I was mailing a letter in Centerville and saw what looked like his face peering at me from one of the hewn blocks of stone holding up the post office. I took a photo of it.

Most people smile at all this, of course, and view it as simple-minded superstition at best and, perhaps, a false trail of hope at worst.

My impulse is to give the "Jesus spotters" some wiggle room, to give them a little ledge to stand on.

Years ago I was reading "The Story of a Soul," the autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux, when I came across a charming moment from her childhood. As a little girl, Therese would look into the night sky in France and look at the great Southern Cross formed of stars (we can't see it here in Utah).

She saw the cross as the letter "T" and decided Jesus had written her first initial in the stars just to make her happy.

I believe such a thought would make Jesus smile.

How could he not love little Therese?

And how could he not love the sweet innocence of people who see his face in the fenders of dented Camaros? They have a childlike faith that should trigger our tenderness, not our cynicism.

In fact, people these days see God in so few places that he's probably pleased just to be noticed anywhere — even on old tortillas.

For, in the end, if we are truly awake and become filled with gratitude, we would see him in more places than just the burn marks of bread or the rings of a tree.

We'd see him everywhere.

We'd look at a field of green wheat rippling in the wind and see him.

We'd look at a baby's toes, a desert flower or the extended wings of a falcon and see him.

We'd even see him in the most dry, parched places on Earth.

But we seldom do.

I know I seldom do.

That's why I'm glad there are people out there who can see the outline of his face in a thousand odd and unusual places.

It's a reminder to me — and everyone else — that he can not only turn up anywhere at any time, he really turns up everywhere all the time.

Daily Scripture & Father Bob's Prayer - Society of the Little Flower

Healing God, Trusting Father, like Miriam and Aaron, sometimes we do not listen to Your prophets, as they speak Your challenging truth. Help us to believe the truth You speak. Help us discern Your prophets this day who speak of Your Kingdom and promise. Enable us to listen to dreams and visions. Empower us to listen to You. As You worked signs and wonders to validate both Moses and Jesus, help us to believe more deeply. Help us to trust the healing and freeing power of Jesus - to surrender our hurts, disappointments and darkness into His healing hand. When the waters of our life feel treacherous, help us to experience Jesus walking on them and through them to us.

The autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the story of a soul

Women of Faith

Collected poems of St Thérèse of Lisieux

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, the Little Flower of Jesus, a revised translation of the definitive Carmelite edition of her autobiography & letters, together with the story of her canonization, and an account of several of her heavenly roses

Called out of darkness, a spiritual confession