You see me, therefore I am

“Who do you say that I am?” It is not just a question posed by Jesus to Peter.

It is a question that slips quietly into the hidden chambers of our own hearts.

In this scene, Jesus stands on the edge of Caesarea Philippi, a place surrounded by temples, idols, shrines, voices. He stands in the midst of many names and asks his followers to name him. We live in a world crowded with names and labels  of who we are supposed to be, who we must please, what we must achieve. Sometimes we wear these names so long, we forget to ask: Who am I really? And who is God to me?

There is a story told by Margaret Silf in Wisdom Stories: A woman came to God, holding her one precious gift: a single tear cupped in her palm. “This is all I have,” she said. God looked at her gently, took the tear, and pressed it to His heart. “It is everything,” He said.

Peter’s answer, “You are the Christ,” is a mirror moment. And Jesus responds in kind: “You are Peter. “In naming Christ, Peter is named. In seeing Christ, Peter is seen. God’s Spirit works in us through the slow revelation of relationship. Like the woman with her single tear, we must be willing to offer even the smallest, rawest truth, our longing, our ache, our fragment and let God name it as everything. And there, we might find a face we never expected: our true self may not perfect, but deeply beloved.

To truly answer Jesus’ question is to allow it to reshape our inner landscape. To live as if the answer we give matters.  If we say, “You are the Christ,” then we are called to reflect the Christ — in our discerning, in our loving, in our union with the world and its pain. When we know as the One who walks with us through every season of our becoming, we no longer fear the truth about ourselves. We become, like Peter, people upon whom something can be built a living space where others can encounter the same grace.

So let the question echo in you, not just today, but in every threshold moment:

“Who do you say that I am?”

And as you respond, may you feel within you the gentle naming of God:

“You are mine. You are more than you fear. You are becoming the face of Love in the world.”

- Lilly Pushpam PBVM

 

Corpus Christi: Bread for the Wilderness (Luke 9: 11-17)

They were in a lonely, deserted place. Yet Jesus did not send the people away. Instead, He asked them to sit down. He took what was there, so little, so ordinary, blessed it, broke it, and gave it. And all were satisfied. That moment has never stopped echoing through time. Today, we find ourselves in many such deserted places. Cities shattered by war, skies filled with smoke, children lost to senseless violence. We see mothers clutching empty arms in Gaza. Iran and Ukraine. We hear the earth crying under the weight of floods, fires, poisoned rivers, and forests stripped bare. The wilderness is no longer far away. It is here. It is now. The memory of one such wilderness still stirs the heart of the world.

Fifteen days after the atom bomb destroyed the city of Hiroshima, Fr Pedro Arrupe, S.J., then a young Jesuit novice master, walked the ravaged streets with medicine and food. His hands moved between bodies and wounds, but something deeper was being asked of him.

“He came across a hut of tin and poles where a big house had once stood. In the hut he found a young Christian girl named Nakamura San. Her whole body was one big wound, full of burns and pus oozing out. When Fr Arrupe sought to clean her wounds, the flesh just fell off, rotten and swarming with maggots. Fr Arrupe knelt by her side, dumb with horror and compassion. It was then that Nakamura opened her eyes, and with eager joy she asked him: ‘Father, have you brought me Holy Communion?’ Fr Arrupe nodded. With tears of joy the fervent girl received the Bread of Life. Soon after she breathed her last.” (At home with God by Hedwig Lewis, SJ.)

This is the mystery we dare to believe: that even when the world burns, even when children die, even when nature groans, Christ remains with us.

Teilhard de Chardin once wrote, “The Eucharist is the universe being made into the Body of Christ.” Not only the bread on the altar, but the vast and trembling cosmos is drawn into His embrace. And if this is so, then every part of creation carries a sacred echo of His Body. The soil cracked by drought, the ocean thick with plastic, forests razed by greed, the lungs of children filled with dust, the rivers that can no longer sing—these, too, are His wounds. The Body of Christ is broken again in creation, suffering quietly in the silence of the Earth. Yet from these very wounds, love still flows. He is not absent from these broken places. He is there, waiting to be recognized, to be reverenced, to be lifted up. All of us carry the DNA of God. The whole cosmos does. And so, the brokenness of the world is not beyond Him. It is within Him. And within us.

- Lilly Pushpam PBVM

Trinity Sunday: Into the Heart of Love. (John 16:12–15)

There is a quiet story told in the spirit of Margaret Silf’s Wisdom Stories. "A small clay jar rested on the edge of the potter’s shelf. Unglazed and waiting, it often wondered, “Have I been forgotten?”

One still night, a voice whispered, I am the Breath. I was with you when you were only dust. Then came another, gentle and steady, I am the Hands. I shaped you with care. And finally, a warm glow surrounded the jar as a third voice spoke, I am the Fire. When the time is right, I will bring forth your beauty." The little jar had no more questions. In that moment, it knew, it was not alone. It had always been part of a loving presence, quietly forming it from within.

This is the kind of truth Jesus promises. A reality we grow into. The Spirit comes with quiet companionship — guiding, revealing, embracing. Truth is wherever there is communion of love. Wherever hearts connect, listen, forgive, and hold space for one another, God is already there. Because God is communion. God is relationship.

And we are invited to step into that communion. To connect, to relate, And to be in love. And for this, we need the Spirit. The Spirit who speaks in whispers, who moves like breath, who burns not to destroy but to awaken. The Spirit who makes space in our hearts for the Father’s giving and the Son’s receiving. The Holy Trinity is a love we are drawn into. A dance that gently includes us. A truth that unfolds slowly, as we become more ready to carry it.

So even when we do not understand, even when we feel unready or incomplete, may we remember: we are already inside the story. We are already being shaped. And the Spirit of truth walks with us still.

A Quiet Whisper for the Heart

You are not forgotten.

You are being formed with tenderness.

You are held by the Breath, shaped by the Hands, and kindled by the Fire.

You are part of a love that listens before it speaks.

A love that waits for your readiness.

A love that is already home within you.

Step into the communion.

There, truth will meet you.

There, God is always near.

- Lilly Pushpam PBVM

 

Pentecost: When Breath becomes Spirit. (John 20:19-23)

What if the locked room was not a failure of faith but a necessary cocoon?

What if the closed doors, the drawn curtains of your heart, are not signs of weakness, but signs that you are waiting to be found?

The disciples were tired, confused, afraid. But Jesus didn’t wait for them to be brave. He entered because love seeks what hides. He stood among them, and spoke peace. He let His breath do the speaking. That breath, soft, unforced and was the same that hovered over the waters at creation. The same that lifted dust into life. A divine whisper that says, “You don’t need to open the door. I’ll come to where you are. I will fill the silence. “And perhaps that’s the promise: that when we can’t move, when we don’t know what to do next, God breathes again.

And in that moment, what filled the room was the Spirit. It was the quiet beginning of Pentecost. This breath was Holy. It was creative, not just comforting. It was the unseen spark that would soon burst into flame.it was the breath that carries peace, that awakens courage, that prepares the soul to receive power.

Even today, when we sit behind our own closed doors, that breath finds us. It doesn’t wait for us to be ready. It meets us exactly where we are. He breathes not just over us, but into us—into the doubts, into the dim corners, into the parts we thought too far gone. And in that breath, we are not only comforted. We are recreated. We are ignited. And slowly, we become the ones sent forth in peace, carrying breath that once found us into a world still holding its breath.

- Lilly Pushpam PBVM