Monthly letters to help put the work of the catechist of the Good Shepherd into the context of the larger world · from the archives
April 2017
by Catherine Maresca
Catherine offered this painting as a gift to my colleague Kate and I a while ago. She is a third grader, and completed the CGS Reconciliation and Eucharist preparation and liturgies about a year ago. Her painting, bursting with light and life and hope, has one little dot, top center with a semicircle drawn around it. The dot, she told us, represents sin. The semicircle represents people. A faint cross lies behind the dot. But the dominant cross of the painting is about love.
Is this your sense of sin in the world, or in yourself: a tiny dot among bursting colors and a cross full of love? The wonder and joy of children, even after they reach the age of moral sensitivities, reminds us there is much to celebrate in the world. Life is stronger than death. Love is stronger than hate. Good overcomes evil. Not just barely, but overwhelmingly.
At the heart of our faith we believe that God is love, and Jesus is risen. These proclamations work together to remind us that “love is love is love is love.” And that love is unconquerable, even in the face of evil and death. Let us rejoice with Catherine and let the joy and color and hope of God’s love and Jesus’ resurrection breath into our words, our acts, our prayer, and to those we are given to share our lives.