Archbishop Dolan's Thought for the Week

July 22, 2008 - Year of St. Paul

Dear Friends united in love and service of Jesus Christ and His Church:

 You wouldn’t think it a gathering of particularly religious folks. 

After all, they were bikers, all decked-out in the leather vests and black boots, proud of their Harley Davidson’s, revving up for the Vince Lombardi ride on behalf of a cancer cure.

And there I was to lead a prayer and give a blessing. Would I find much faith? I wondered . . .

Then one showed me the little plastic angel he always carried with him for protection . . .

Another pointed out the teddy bear he had in his saddle bag, the gift of a little child from a family he had stopped to help after their car had wrecked . . .

One had a rosary on the handle-bar, another a small Bible in the tool kit . . .

A few others talked about sensing God’s presence in the beauty of nature as they rode through the Wisconsin countryside, and asked me to pray for friends who were sick or struggling . . .

Almost all wore a cross . . .

And they all quieted down, bowed their heads and closed their eyes when I invited them to pray . . .

Yes, I had found faith. I’ll be darned, I concluded . . . this was a gathering of religious folks.

It reminded me once again that, deep down in the human spirit is a longing for God, a hunger for the Divine, a thirst for the beyond, a strong hunch that there is indeed a God who is in charge, who loves us and cares for us.

We often rail against the “secularism” of our “evil age.” And, Lord knows, there’s plenty of evidence around us to back-up a tempting despair that the world has gone-to-hell-in-a-hand basket.

But, God has not, and will not, give up on us, and, as I was reminded last Saturday, in the strangest of places -- a gathering of bikers who looked more frightening than faithful -- most of us have not given up on God, either.

Maybe instead of groaning that everybody has gone pagan, secular and faithless on us, we ought to rejoice in the spark of belief, hope and goodness that we almost unfailingly find in people -- even those decked out in chains, tattoos, leather jackets, and black boots.

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan

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