Last night at supper my housemates and I saw a really marvelous rainbow. We have a picture of the Emmaus meal on our dining room wall. Because of the arrangement of windows and mirrors in our house, the rainbow appeared as a glowing circle centered on the face of Jesus. Sister Bela took a picture. We watched it as it moved to the cup of wine and then faded from view. Someone remarked that it disappeared just as Jesus had “at the breaking of the bread.” I remembered that I’d once seen a similar rainbow illuminating a Divine Mercy picture.
When it comes to a “Jesus” made of mold on a barn door or a “Mary” in a piece of burnt toast, I’m a true skeptical Missourian: you have to “show me.” But I do believe that God breaks into the ordinary.
In fact, I’ve seen God often. So have you: in a smile, in a crisp fall day, in a cheerful word, in a kind deed, in meaningful work and insightful conversation, in prayer, in sorrow, in hope, most of all in love. God appears to the superstitious and the skeptic alike; God is present to sinner as well as saint. There is a precedent for our dining room phenomenon: when Noah needed hope, God sent him a rainbow, too.
– Blog entry by Sister Paula Gero; photo by Sister Bela Mis