So many times in Scripture people ask Jesus to do something sensational to prove he really was the anointed one of God.  They missed the fact that the greatest sign God could send was Jesus Himself.  As long ago, Jonah was God’s sign to Ninevah, so now Jesus was God’s sign to the people, and they failed to recognize Him.

While reading Luke’s gospel for today I was struck by the word “sign.”  I reflected on the fact that our world is filled with signs, signs advertising products or sales, traffic signs.  The sacraments are signs.  People reveal rejection or acceptance through facial signs.  What I concluded from all of this though is that we’re all called to an awakening.  Awakening to what?  To paraphrase St. Ignatius, we’re called to find God in all the signs around us each day.

There’s a story told about the great depression in the 1920’s when millions were out of work in our country.  A Western Union office in New York City advertised that they were going to hire one person and would interview the following Monday.  Before the office opened the next day, there were 25 people lined up, ready to be interviewed.  When the office opened, there were 42 who poured into the waiting room, each one hoping to be hired.  As they sat in silence time moved slowly.  The only sounds heard were the ticking of the clock, the clacking of the secretary’s typewriter keys, and the dot-dot-dashes of the telegraph.  The applicants waited 20 minutes, 30, 40.  After 45 minutes a man walked into the waiting room, squeezed into a place on the floor to wait with the rest.  After three minutes he got up, went into the inner office, and returned in five minutes proclaiming:  “I got the job!”  There was a near-riot in the waiting room until the manager came out and explained:  “We’ve been tapping out in Morse Code for the past 40 minutes, ‘Whoever can translate this, come in.  You’ve got the job.’” 

So what does this mean for us today?  My suggestion is that as you walk through this day, become AWARE.  God is all around us, bursting forth in color and beauty in all the places we’ll walk through and in all the faces we’ll look into today.  For all of this we can continually praise and thank God throughout the day.  May I suggest that you carry it a bit further by thanking someone for being a revelation for God to you in some way.  If you can’t do it in person, why not a quick phone call, a short note, or an e-mail?  An honest, sincere expression of gratitude makes you an angel of God’s revelation.  I can remember how I felt three years ago when I was walking through the airport in Milwaukee.  The mother of a former student rushed up to me.  I had given her husband a retreat several years before.  She grabbed my arm and loudly stated:  “Oh, Fr. Driscoll, so nice to see you.  I can’t tell you how much your talks have helped my husband, now that he’s lost his mind.”

I’m not sure what that was a sign of, but I was able to give thanks to God even for that.  Go though and do likewise.