As I think about the week I spent advising 40 Franciscan University students who chose to spend their Spring Break serving others right here in Steubenville, the phrase that keeps ringing in my heart is “Christ meeting Christ.” In their scraping, painting, bleaching, listening, counseling, challenging, feeding, visiting, and being present to others, the students certainly showed this city the face of Christ. But the people of Steubenville also showed us His face: He came hungry to the soup kitchen, was bewildered in a teen mom, was lonely in the elderly, zealous in those who work regularly for the betterment of the city, and weary in the job-hunting. The face of Christ that stands out most vividly to me, however, is Christ as I met him in “John.”

John is a man who I met some months ago through a mutual friend at a farmers’ market. He soon started coming to the weekly Bible Study we have at Samaritan House, and I got to know him well. He was sick the whole time I knew him: he had recently been informed that his cancer had come back and he probably did not have very long to live. But his immense zeal for life made it hard to believe that, and I didn’t often think about how sick he was. In the fall, we began to prepare together for consecration to Jesus through Mary, using Fr. Gaitley’s book “33 Days to Morning Glory” and consecrated together at Mass on December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

After Christmas, John’s health started to decline more quickly, and he called me from the hospital in February. I visited him a few times there, and he rallied well after surgery and went home. Spring Break week was, for me, the perfect opportunity to have some students over to give John some love as well as practical help in cleaning his house up a bit. It was beautiful to see how he flourished in the light of the students’ love as they talked with him, made him lunch, and cleaned his kitchen. I had, in truth, been somewhat worried about John after my visits to him in the hospital, because he seemed so afraid of God, so afraid of death. But the man I left after our second visit during mission was less angry, more peaceful, and a lot happier than the one I had seen just weeks earlier.