Respecting holiness in one another

Joan Anderson, in her book A Year by the Sea recalls a friend who trained monks in "ritualization"

"When they started Communion," she explained, "they would pick up the chalice without giving it any thought, purely an object to be used, not treated as holy. What they needed to learn was the importance of developing a relationship with liturgical things and become involved with them. Only then would the ceremony have meaning."

Listening to her, I couldn't help but imagine what my world might be like if I looked at the human beings I was closest to as holy and treated them with that same sense of respect.

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