Father Charles Puthota

There is a charming story from the Eastern tradition about an old man planning mango saplings in rainy season. A curious neighbor asks him if he expects to eat the mangoes from those trees.

In her poem “God Knows,” British poet Minnie Louise Haskins says: “I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown!’ And he replied: ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.’” King George VI quoted these comforting words of faith in his 1939 Christmas broadcast to a troubled nation of Great Britain at the outbreak of World War II. In the midst of war, terror, and evil, when everything seemed lost, people felt reassured by the call to put their hand into the hand of God. It seemed the only way forward.

A boy was flying a kite on a windy day. The kite kept going higher and higher, and after some time, it got so high that it was out of sight. A passerby, seeing the boy holding onto a string, asked him, “How do you even know that you have a kite up there?” The boy replied, “Because I can feel it.”

In Thornton Wilder’s Pulitzer Prize winning play “Our Town,” set in the fictional town of Grover’s Corners in New Hampshire, the narrator, pointing to the graves of familiar people in the cemetery, says: “Yes, an awful lot of sorrow has sort of quieted down up here. People just wild with grief have brought their relatives up to this hill… Now there are some things we all know, but we don’t take ‘m out and look at ‘m very often. We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars … everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being. … They’re waitin’. They’re waitin’ for something that they feel is comin’. Something important, and great. Aren’t they waitin’ for the eternal part in them to come out clear?”

Years ago, I had the privilege of celebrating Mass at St. Thérèse of Child Jesus’ Carmelite Convent in Lisieux, France, and of visiting Les Buissonnets, the house she grew up in, now turned into a sacred museum. While there, I was touched by a mysterious presence and power. Ever since, Thérèse has been one of three most favorite saints for my personal reflection, inspiration, and guidance.