- Sep 27, 2019
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I don't know if this is a well-known story but I heard it when listening to a talk this morning. It's a true story and it concerns a Roman Catholic archbishop. I can't remember jis name but he was French so if anyone has hear the story before and knows the name perhaps they could post it.
The archbishop told the story of three young lads who thought they'd go into a church for a laugh. They went to confession one by one and made up silly sins that they had committed. The priest saw through them of course. The first two lads ran out of the church laughing but the priest detained the tnird one by saying, ‘Okay, you have confessed these sins. I want you to do a penance. I want you to walk up to the far end of the church and look at the picture of Jesus hanging on the cross, and I want you to look at his face and say, “You did all that for me and I don’t care that much.” And I want you to do that three times’.
And so the boy went up to the front thinking it was a great laugh and looked at the picture of Jesus and said, ‘You did all that for me and I don’t care that much’. And then he said it again, but then he couldn’t say it the third time because he broke down in tears. And the archbishop telling the story said, the reason I know that story is that I was that young man.
The person relating this story said that it shows that there's something about the cross that grasps us in a way that goes beyond all the ideas about what it means. There's something about Jesus dying that grasps us and when it does we somehow have a sense that what is grasping us is the love of God.
Does anyone else like this story and have something simple that you can turn to to get a renewed sense of God's presence when it seems absent?
The archbishop told the story of three young lads who thought they'd go into a church for a laugh. They went to confession one by one and made up silly sins that they had committed. The priest saw through them of course. The first two lads ran out of the church laughing but the priest detained the tnird one by saying, ‘Okay, you have confessed these sins. I want you to do a penance. I want you to walk up to the far end of the church and look at the picture of Jesus hanging on the cross, and I want you to look at his face and say, “You did all that for me and I don’t care that much.” And I want you to do that three times’.
And so the boy went up to the front thinking it was a great laugh and looked at the picture of Jesus and said, ‘You did all that for me and I don’t care that much’. And then he said it again, but then he couldn’t say it the third time because he broke down in tears. And the archbishop telling the story said, the reason I know that story is that I was that young man.
The person relating this story said that it shows that there's something about the cross that grasps us in a way that goes beyond all the ideas about what it means. There's something about Jesus dying that grasps us and when it does we somehow have a sense that what is grasping us is the love of God.
Does anyone else like this story and have something simple that you can turn to to get a renewed sense of God's presence when it seems absent?
