The following story first appeared in the Autumn 2005 Glenmary Challenge.
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Arachnophobia Revisited
Like dew on a spider's web, missioners illuminate God's presence in our world!
By Father Dan Dorsey

Walking to the office early one morning, I was silently grumbling because my shoes were wet and getting covered with yesterday’s newly mowed grass. It was a late summer morning and the dew was particularly heavy—so much so that I wondered if there had been a light rain during the night. But as I approached the office entranceway, I was stopped abruptly in my tracks by an amazing sight in the bushes that line the sidewalk.

What caught my attention was a spider web. The heavy dew of the morning illuminated the web. The effect, a combination of sunlight and dew, was mesmerizing. I marveled at how delicate and intricate it was, yet I was also reminded of a satellite photo of a hurricane—with the eye surrounded by a great swirling mass of white.

Now before you run away screaming (I know many of us suffer from arachnophobia), take a moment and reflect with me on this image of a spider web.

How many mornings had I walked by the web and never noticed it? In a sense it was the dew that brought the spider web to life and to my attention.

Our fear of spiders (also known as “Little Miss Muffet syndrome”) should not keep us from admiring the exquisiteness of their work. The web they weave is often poetic in its beauty.

God’s love and activity surrounds us every day and in every circumstance of our lives. Yet, like the spider web, it often goes unnoticed because our thoughts are elsewhere and our days are busy. The pace of our lives is frenetic. We drive, eat and talk on our cell phones—all at the same time! A Carly Simon song a few years back succinctly summarized this way of life: “I haven’t got time for the pain!”

It is easy to be oblivious to God’s love and presence in our world—to figuratively and literally “walk right by it” every day. Jesus chides us with his observation that we “have eyes but we do not see.

The task of a Glenmary missioner is to share this good news: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (John 3:16). Gathering people for the Eucharist, building homes, helping the transient, driving someone to chemotherapy, delivering meals to shut-ins, visiting other Christian churches—all of these activities of a missioner are like the heavy morning dew that brings God’s love and the presence of Jesus to our attention.

The missioner’s ministry proclaims that God’s love surrounds us. All we need to do is notice it.

Whether a missioner is responding to people’s spiritual or physical needs, it is the presence of Jesus that makes a difference. And it is this presence that the missioner seeks to illuminate.

The missioner’s goal is to help people see something that was always there but often goes unnoticed: the beauty of God and the joy and the hope that God brings to our lives.

So the next time you see a spider web, don’t be frightened away like Little Miss Muffet. Instead, think of the Glenmary priests, brothers and coworkers who are laboring to illuminate the presence of God in the mission regions of the United States—and the important role you play as our partners in this home mission ministry.