OUR SPONSORS

Please support our sponsors

CATHOLIC QUOTES

 Encyclopedia RSS

 Catholic Encyclopedia

SPECIAL OFFERS

S  i  d  e  b  a  r

Something’s Wrong with John

This Rock Volume 18, Number 7   September 2007     Reasons for Hope By Cherie Peacock   Letters   Keep It Together: Advice from the Trenches By Pete Vere, JCL   Further Reading   ¡Viva Cristo Rey!: The Cristeros versus the Mexican Revolution By Christopher Check   Mexico’s Tarcisius: José Sánchez del Río   Torture and Death   Further Reading   More Than a Feeling: What it Means to Follow Your Conscience By Leon J. Suprenant, Jr.   Have You Examined Your Conscience Lately?   Further Reading   God of Desire By Christopher Kaczor   Let Me Count the Ways   Further Reading   Something’s Wrong with John   Damascus Road An Unexpected Sequel By Leona Choy   By the Book Hail Mary, Conceived without Sin By Tim Staples   Eyes to See Let Your Face Shine on Us By Michael Schrauzer   Truth be Told An Inquisition Primer By Robert P. Lockwood   Quick Questions   Last Writes By Karl Keating    Subscribe    Permissions

John Yzaguirre, in his book Thriving Marriages, recounts that when he was a teenager, a friend invited him to attend a lecture given by a physician on living the Gospel in everyday life. John considered himself an atheist who had "outgrown" religion but went to the talk simply out of friendship. Following the talk, John asked the physician, "Do you really believe that stuff?" The doctor replied, "Who cares? The important point is whether you do." The physician took out his prescription pad and wrote these words from Jesus: "Whatever you do for the least of these you did for me" (Matt. 25:40). The physician then added, "For the next two weeks, live these words as if they were true, and then call me." John returned home, and when his dad came in the door from work, thought, "Well, if Jesus were just arriving here, I’d get up and greet him," so John did. His dad was stunned: "Everything all right, son?" Before he sat down again, John saw his mother cooking dinner in the kitchen and thought "Well, if Jesus were in the kitchen cooking, I’d at least see if he needed any help." Near the end of dinner, when only a single hamburger remained, John offered it to his younger brother, who said in alarm, "Dad, something’s wrong with John." In fact, something was right with John. With God’s help, he had begun to live the wisdom of Bl. Mother Teresa, "Each person is Jesus in disguise." As he loved the people he saw in his ordinary, everyday life, John soon began to love the God he could not see. John became a passionate believer and lover of people—not through argument, but by loving his neighbor as Jesus would.