Do  you believe in coincidences?

For me, too many times when I look back at the “coincidences” in my life, I see the hand of God.

I can think of so many, but one in particular stands out in relation to the reflection for today. It goes like this: I found myself repeating as a mantra, “Oh God, let me see your face”. And surprisingly, I “heard” that little whisper from God “Just look at the next face you see.”  Whoa! OK, the surprise for me was in that immediate and wonderful answer. So easy and so hard to do- to see God’s face in everyone I encounter, even the face in the mirror, perhaps the hardest one of all.

So the coincidence for me lay in the words of call and response in  psalm 80: Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved. OK, if that is what it takes to be saved, how do we see God’s face?  It was difficult even for the prophets who searched diligently, tirelessly, for the face of God.Yet all they got was a view of his back,  seeing God in his actions, what he has done, but not a face to face intimate encounter.

What does this have to do with today’s gospel? Even Elizabeth, welcoming Mary to her doorstep, did not see the unborn child, only recognizing him in the glorious presence of his mother. Mary’s greeting , heard even in utero by John who leaped for joy, showed Elizabeth the full blessedness of who stood before her.

The closing words of the gospel are an invitation to us all: “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” We may not see  the face of God in the way we imagined, but surely we will see God in this life and the next: Believe and we will see what some have called “Reality with a face”, God, in every person, even in all of creation. What joy.