Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Manifestation of God's Love - A Great Literary Example

In our teen catechism group, we've been discussing how people can be manifestation of God's love to others. This was a significant topic in Pope Benedict XVI's Deus Caritas Est and Sacramentum Caritatis. I came across a lovely example of this in Uncle Tom's Cabin. George is a runaway slave who has been welcomed into a Quaker farmhouse...

It was the first time that ever George had sat down on equal terms at any white man's table; and he sat down, at first, with some constraint, and awkwardness; but they all exhaled and went off like fog, in the genial morning rays of this simple overflowing kindness.

This indeed, was a home, - home, -a word that George had never yet known a meaning for; and a belief in God, and trust in His providence, began to encircle his heart, as, with a golden cloud of protection and confidence, dark, misanthropic, pining, atheistic doubts, and fierce despair, melted away before the light of a living Gospel, breathed in living faces, preached by a thousand unconscious acts of love and good-will, which, like the cup of cold water given in the name of a disciple, shall never lose their reward.

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