All our relationships reveal the face of God

I was coming back from one of the local primary schools after a First Communion practice when disaster struck.

Well, when I say disaster struck it was more me who struck disaster, as I thought it would be a good idea to hit a traffic Island.

I was living under a cloud as Liverpool had been beaten the night before and to add to my misery as I was coming in the Woodside Road to Gobnascale I managed to clip a traffic Island which resulted in a flat wheel. I had no option but to park at the side of the road. In a scene reminiscent of ‘Ghost Busters’ I was thinking to myself who am I going to call? When it comes to practical problems I have two left hands so usually I phone one of the sacristans or Father Sean for help.

For those who are old enough Father Sean is like the character out of the 1980s and 90s American TV programme ‘MacGyver’. With the simple aid of pen knife MacGyver could build you a tank. In a similar manner Father Sean could build you motorbike using now more than a paper clip as his tool. So of course I phoned Father Sean looking for help. Unfortunately, Father Sean was out of the country, he had the cheek to be over in the Derry side. Thankfully, a car pulled up behind my stranded vehicle and young person no more than twenty came to my rescue. Before I knew it the spare wheel and the jack were on the footpath and within minutes the punctured wheel was in the boot of my car. The young lad had the sense to pack his own car behind mine with his hazard lights flashing in warning. Feeling extremely grateful I tried to insist he would take some money as gesture of thanks but he wouldn’t hear tell of it. He simply replied ‘No thanks, that’s not what’s it’s about.’ Without his help life would have been more difficult that morning, the young parishioner saved me a lot of time and hassle by going out of his way to stop and help.

As we celebrate the mystery of the Trinity, we might ask what is it all about? At the forefront of all our speculations there is one truth which stands out, God can be experienced here and now in our lives. God lives in and through a community of persons and this revelation that God exists as persons in relation is the basic DNA of our own lives. We were made to be in relation, all the different people and all the varied relationships which comprise our lives reveal the face of God. God is an infinite mystery, larger than our imaginations. Yet we experience God through the people we share our lives with. Each of us through our gifts and personalities, our skills and knowledge reveal some aspect of God’s love. Being the person God wants us to be and reaching out to help one another, we reveal the face of God to a world which hungers and thirsts for his healing presence.