Not on schedule, but right on time

Arieh Czeislah, a native of Kosice in what is now Slovakia, was learning from his grandfather how to read from the Torah in preparation for his Bar Mitzvah when he was carried off along with forty-two other members of his family to the infamous Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

He was one of only four members of his family to survive the Holocaust.

Four years ago, he returned to the concentration camps as part of a tour organized by the Israeli armed forces. And he has returned several times since out of a sense of duty to share with the citizens of his nation the horrors he experienced so that they will never be forgotten.

A group of officers who had accompanied Arieh on a trip learned that he never was able to make his Bar Mitzvah 66 years ago. With his family, they arranged a belated celebration for the 79-year-old man this past September 22 in the village in Northern Israel where he has been living since 1950. Though the festivities come much later than the customary age of 13, there is no doubt that they were any less heartfelt. He witnesses to the fact that it is never too late to become a son of the Law and the Covenant.

God's ways are not our ways, and God's sense of timing is wholly different from our own. We like to stick to a schedule: For Jews, Bar Mitzvah by 13 years old; for Christians, baptism shortly after birth, first communion by second grade, and confirmation in high school. But, God visits us when he wills. Each sacrament is a "yes" to God's invitation to a life of grace, but it may be many years before it matures into a whole-hearted commitment to God's word. And, we know how frequently that initial "yes" gets lost in the demands of everyday life. Like the religious leaders whom Jesus so often challenged, we can say "yes" right on schedule but fail to recognize the gift of salvation visiting us in the "fullness of time".

As a community, we are blessed by those who, like Arieh, go through the sacramental rites of passage "out of order", whether it be the catechumens in our RCIA programs or those who come to be married in the Church after many years of civil marriage. They remind us both of the gravity and the joy of taking those first steps toward full communion with God's People. They challenge us to take the "yes" we spoke many years ago out of our trophy case, polish it up and put it back on display. We should take every opportunity to recognize and celebrate them as instances of God's saving timing.