It’s more F.U.N.: Jesus’ Footprints
It is always pleasant and mentally therapeutic to walk along the shore of any calm and scenic beach. Boracay is obviously not in my list of fun beaches. As a child I enjoyed beach-combing with my father. He didn’t only love to swim and dive (he dared to dive even without a license since back then things weren’t as strict as now) he also enjoyed walking along the shore and poking a stick at the sand and rocks hoping to find something interesting (e.g. a hermit crab, some exotic-looking seashell, a new slug or fish). I guess we all, except our land-lubber-mom, inherited these beach habits naturally.
Sometimes dad would go off by himself walking for kilometres. He considered this a good alternative to jogging. Whenever we began missing his presence, it was easy to find him. All we had to do was follow his footprints clearly pointing to the direction he went. As we skipped towards ‘dad pole’ we would literally step into his footprints feeling that doing so somehow ‘merged’ us with him as we reached a point where ‘dad dot’ in the horizon once again became that familiar smiling and encouraging face of our father.
Some 20 or so centuries ago, I can’t help imagining something similar when Jesus invited His disciples with those familiar yet divinely filled words: “Come, follow me!” Even though these words of our Lord were said to initiate the apostleship of these simple and ordinary men, Jesus may have on many occasions gestured to the disciples to follow Him constantly. And follow Him they did!
Jesus led them through towns and villages, climbing mountains and hills, crossing fields and seas. Along the more often traded routes between towns, I imagine how our Lord would have sometimes gone ahead of the apostles –not because He was in a hurry– who may have been lagging behind because they were perhaps, ashamed that Jesus would hear their discussions and reveal their incapacity to understand or connect with our Lord’s teachings.
Sometimes, our Lord (who perfectly knew what they were discussing) would have purposely stopped to call them casually into His confidence. The disciples would have immediately rectified, especially when they realized the physical gap between them and Jesus has widened. They would have surely scurried to our Lord as if to say, ‘…it was nothing, really, Jesus…we were just discussing…, Uhm…some things….” Our Lord would have smiled compassionately at them, and would sometimes try to draw them closer so they could sincerely tell Him what it was they were ‘talking about along the way.”
On similar occasions, as they meandered back to Him, the youngest apostle John would have skipped his way confidently back to His Master. And perhaps, he would have playfully followed and even stepped on the very footprints left by Jesus upon the dusty trail. Our Lord, quite amused, must have embraced the young and eager apostle for this childlike trust and docility. After twenty centuries, there continue to be men and women –like children– who continue to follow Jesus’ footprints.
St. Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei, experienced something similar. After a severe continued snowfall in the city of Barbastro , the adolescent Josemaría chanced upon the bare foot prints of someone on the cold mantle of snow. What seemed to many a trivial mark of humanity, stirred and engraved in the boy’s heart the footprints of divinity. “His curiosity piqued, he stopped and stared at those white imprints so obviously left by one of the Discalced Carmelite fathers. Moved to the very depths of his soul, he asked himself, ‘If others can make such sacrifices for God and neighbour, can’t I offer him something?’”(A. Váquez de Prada, The Founder of Opus Dei, Vol. 1)
What followed then were a series of ‘footprints’ marking for St. Josemaría the path to follow until he saw what God wanted of him: to found Opus Dei, and to spread the message –old as the Gospel and like the Gospel new– that all men are called by God to holiness within their own ordinary circumstances in life. Little by little God showed him greater strokes of His design that opened for everyone “the divine paths of the earth” as he fondly called it.
In following the footprints of Christ, St. Josemaría taught that even the most ordinary and seemingly unnoticeable detail of one’s occupation can be transformed into a ‘heroic verse’ when it is done with a sincere love for God. As a result, the meagre material that we handle everyday carves three important prints: it becomes something we offer to God who sanctifies it through us; it is something through which we likewise strive to constantly acquire holiness and finally, it becomes a means to help others to become holy.
Moreover, St. Josemaría carried this divine light to their further consequences: he sought out the quid divinum (that something divine) behind everything he did. Opening a door or closing it, turning a light switch on or off, going up or down a staircase, living material order in small and big things, etc., these are now transformed to become clear prints to follow and find Christ behind each of them. But there is more…
In his sincere fidelity to the illumination from the bare foot prints and other succeeding lights, St. Josemaría became himself a footprint of God for others to follow. His life and teachings, like those of the first disciples of our Lord, are also a clear and sure path in order to “seek Christ, find Christ and to love Christ. (St. Josemaría, Words of dedication in a book about our Lord’s Sacred Passion)”
Thus, St. Josemaría’s life and message invites all men and women to also walk the path to discover the footprints left by Christ in their lives. By following these divine prints faithfully and generously, they soon find themselves caught up to encounter He who is the Way, the Truth and the Life: Jesus Christ.
