By: Sr. M. Grace Augustine
I remember sitting on my bed as a teenager terribly moody and not terribly committed to un-mood myself. Sound familiar? Finding his daughter in this state, my dad would come into the room, sit down on the bed and ask, “What are you living for?” Purpose is important and the lack thereof can go undetected for years and be the cause of much unrest and confusion. Blessed Chiara Badano (d. 1990) once said, “I’m only interested in doing God’s will, doing that well, in the present moment: playing God’s game.”
One day, my “present moment” found myself in the Kansas City airport en route to a retreat where I was going to give a talk on Bl. Chiara and the Evangelical Counsels. Procrastinator-me decided to begin thinking about the talk at Gate 35B. I wanted to present Bl. Chiara as the athlete that she was, but I needed a story to tie it all together.
“Is this seat open?” I asked two women who were sitting on the other side of a backpack. They smiled and assured me that it was. I pulled out my breviary and prayed Vespers, although I was a little distracted. The young women were wearing athletic attire that looked more legitimate than recreational leisure mode, and I was trying to figure out what sport they played. When I closed the breviary, I asked, “So, do you play basketball?” They smiled and nodded. “College?” “No,” they laughed: “Pro.” I was stunned but freedom of speech quickly returned, and I immediately told them that I was going to give a talk about the Gospel to young women and would really like to ask them some questions. They were happy to help. I asked them why they played basketball, and they both agreed that they loved the sport. I pressed further: “So, why do you love the sport?” One of them responded that she loves to release all her energy on the court and really give everything to the game. I assured them both that I love sports and that I see marks of human excellence in sportsmanship and personal conditioning and then I continued with boisterous bluntness: “Eventually, your body will not be able to play on that court; the aging process will begin. Then, what is the meaning of your life?” One woman sat up a little straighter and commented that it was a good question; the other woman paused for a moment and said with excitement, “But the game continues! Just because you can’t play anymore doesn’t mean that you can’t watch and still live the game.” I was content with their honest responses and decided not to press further for the sake of mental health. We talked about basketball until I needed to find supper. When Kree and Tethe commented that it was crazy that we had met, I assured them that the Holy Spirit was alive in my life and theirs and that the encounter was no accident.
As I returned to B35 for boarding, Tethe yelled across the gate, “Sister, we have something for you!” I looked up to see Kree holding up a t-shirt from the national tournament they had been participating in that weekend. Thanking them, I told them that I would raffle it off to the girls during the talk and asked if they had a Sharpie so that they could autograph it. I retrieved a blue Sharpie from the airline officer at the counter and enjoyed watching Kree and Tethe write their autographs and other graphics on the t-shirt. Noticing that my flight was almost entirely boarded, I went to return the Sharpie but grabbed the Today’s Missal out of my backpack on my way. I hurriedly found the page with the Gospel for the following day: the Multiplication of the Loaves. I ripped it out and wrote in blue Sharpie: “Here lies true greatness. Go Oakland Rise! Hope to see you in Heaven! Prayers!” The Sharpie was handed back to the airline officer. As I grabbed my backpack to head through the Jetway, I handed the Gospel to Kree with the words, “See you in Heaven.” Even though Tethe and Kree may not yet realize their true purpose, they helped me to understand a bit of mine as a Carmelite Sister of the Divine Heart of Jesus. In her Autobiography, Bl. Maria Teresa of St. Joseph, while listing the three purposes of our Congregation, writes, “First: as Atonement” (p.44). Before my Gate B35 present moment, I would often read this as overwhelming, daunting or maybe depressing. Our Constitutions declare something beautiful and freeing when they say, “In this sense do we understand atonement: as being open to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, as the true knowledge of Christ and as the transforming power of love with which we courageously bear the trials of life and which covers a multitude of sins” (Par. 33).
God allows that encounters at airport gates, daycare lunch tables, college classrooms, nursing home hallways and every other place can become vehicles where mankind can participate in His own salvific work by being open to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. Bl. Chiara’s words above are mere echoes of Christ’s own mission: “Father, into your hands, I commend my Spirit.” After all, it was that salvific spiration which made it possible for us to respond to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit in the present moment…on purpose…in atonement. So, in the words of my dad, “What are you living for?”