“By the very fact that we are created in the image of God, we continuously long for Him – waiting to be satiated by His presence. ‘This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins’ (1 John, 4:10).

“God waits for us. In Jn. 4 . Jesus meets the Samaritan woman – he was waiting for her at the well. ‘Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden’ (MT. 11, 28.). We can come to him because He is already waiting for us, He is the One who makes himself available to us.

“There is OUR WAITING FOR THE LORD: ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord’, (Is. 55, 8).

“It is an active waiting – by being open to His time and His ways, here and now. ‘Yesterday has gone, tomorrow has not yet come and we have only today to make him known, loved and served’ (St. Teresa of Calcutta).

“Waiting to see Him at work in our lives entails a lot of faith, patience and perseverance – ‘The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed upon the ground, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he knows not how…’. (Mk 4. 26 – 27).

“Waiting is welcoming, recognising, and meeting the person in front of us, being fully present to him/her. BUT we need the light of FAITH and the LIGHT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT to see Jesus in that person: like John, who was open to the Holy Spirit and could say to Peter, ‘it is the Lord’ (Jn, 21. Verse 7). It is not easy to see Jesus in “difficult” children, in the drug-addict, in the person that tries to control or manipulate.

“‘We need to be pure of heart to see Jesus in the person of the poor. Therefore, the more repugnant the work, or the more disfigured or deformed the image of God in the person, the greater will be our faith in loving devotion in seeing the face of Jesus and lovingly ministering to Him in the distressing disguise’. (St. Teresa of Calcutta).

“‘Let us beg our Lady to lend us her heart so beautiful, so pure, so immaculate, her heart so full of love and humility tat we may be able to receive and carry Jesus with the same sentiments with which she received him and carried Him’. (Missionaries of Charity’s Prayer Book).”

Make time to reflect

It comes natural to us to see God in that which is good and beautiful, but, sometimes the persons we meet might not meet these criteria. Sometimes, the people we meet can suffer from jealousy, pride, egoism, and unforgiveness. But the Missionaries of Charity speak to us of the joy and the beauty that lie in also loving such persons. Indeed, they even tell us that it is in loving those who are difficult to love, that we grow and mirror Jesus the most!

• Take a moment to reflect upon this and upon those persons in your life whom you think need the most love.

• Where do you seek to meet with God?

• Who are the people in whom you find the opportunity to meet God? How are you letting God meet you? God, too, is longing for you!