Every evening, a rabbit we came to name “Francis” makes its rounds through the pastures. The rabbit has figured prominently in the mythology of many cultures, including the Ojibwe and Dakota cultures indigenous to our part of Central Minnesota. Seeing Francis is an opportunity to experience a long time historical and important spiritual legacy related to the land and its indigenous peoples, and at the same time experience the connection with nature and animals that figures so prominently in Franciscan tradition. As you may imagine, its always a powerful moment that God arranges to happen when it should.
Sometimes we can think that our relationship to God is separate from interactions with people in our everyday lives. We can think that the sacred is separate. It is an understandable human tendency because it is easier to relate with God when we think we have God all to ourselves, privately, and just the way we like it. Things get much more complicated if God is also part of our day-to-day in the world of hustle and bustle and a thousand neighbors.
But if we think about it we’re lucky that God is not separate from all those encounters and relationships we have with the people in our lives, and the people we cross paths with every day. By far, most of us spend more time in the world outside of a church building than we do in one, as we try to make a living, provide for ourselves and maybe a family as well, and live life like everyone else is trying to do. f God were not part of that greater part of our life, we would not have much of God in our life.
God is as present in our encounters and relationships with others as much as God is present in a church building. In reality, the world is intended to be sacred, and our relationships in that sacred world our important. Whether or not the world remains sacred, or we treat it in ways that ignore that sanctity or even desecrate it, is up to us.
Our relationship with God is totally connected to our choices in the sacred everyday world in which we live. In that way, we are responsible for the sanctity of the world, i.e. we have a responsibility.
There is a lot of togetherness and unity in what we are talking about. Instead of separate, we have together. Everything sacred together, in unity. Nothing set apart as an exception so that we can have our own private sacred and write off everything else as separate and uninvolved. It is a more wholistic view and understanding of the sacred, the sanctity of the larger world, and the sanctity of all parts of our lives — that’s right, we’re saying that all parts of your life have a dimension of sanctity built into them. Your being, in all ways, is literally sacred. That stays true even in the hardest of situations. Nothing can take that dimension of sanctity away from you, no matter what happens.
When Jesus was teaching, most people in his audience understood that anything sacred is separate from the rest of life and the world. Jesus changed that understanding by teaching the importance and connection of our relationships with other people to our relationship with God:
If you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go first and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift. ~ Matthew 5:23-24, Liturgy of the Word for June 11, 2026
Jesus ties together our relationships with others to our relationship with God in a way that helps us understand that our readiness for relating with God really depends upon how our relationships are doing.
When our relationships are not well, we have an obstacle in our relationship with God that needs our attention. We have a responsibility to preserve the sanctity of both our world and our own lives. In our every day lives, we not only may provide the experience of that sanctity to ourselves, but all day long we are also either providing the experience of that sanctity to others, or not so much. When someone has a grievance about us, that person is not experiencing sanctity, and we have a responsibility toward them that has us at least trying to reconcile in a way that will restore an experience of the sanctity of the world and relationships for that person, as well as the same for ourselves.
The way to restore sanctity of the world and relationships is through forgiveness and reconciliation. The beauty of forgiveness is that it is not a power that only an elite few have, but rather is something that even the most ordinary or smallest person is capable of doing. When the sanctity of the world depends upon forgiveness and reconciliation (that’s a big job!), and forgiveness is something that ordinary everyday people can do, it makes complete sense that the world is mostly populated by us ordinary everyday people. We are the world’s insurance policy against losing its sacredness.
Today, think about whether you are separating your relationships with others from your relationship with God.
- Are you one way inside a church building or when it’s time to pray, but another way when you are out and about in the world?
- Do you have a relationship involving a person who has a grievance about you that would be better for your relationship with God if you were to connect with that person and ask for forgiveness?
- How do you keep an eye on sanctity in your relationships with others, as part of your relationship with God?
- What’s one thing you could do this week to mend a relationship that needs it?
Special Note: Always remember that sanctity is what we’re keeping an eye on when it comes to our relationships with others (and ourselves). Sometimes a relationship needs to be a certain way in order to keep and protect sanctity for the people involved. If a relationship is harmful, exploitative, abusive, violating or destructive, then keeping and protecting sanctity can be about not deepening that relationship. In those cases, sanctity is about managing the relationship to minimize or eliminate its harmful, exploitative, abusive, violating or destructive force. That often means not participating in that relationship unless or until it fundamentally (and permanently) changes. That too is responsibility for sanctity. If you need help to figure out if you are involved in that kind of relationship, definitely reach out to your parish pastor or a mental health professional. It is good to keep your own sanctity!
Please share these words with someone who needs them.
This article is an original work of the author and was not composed by or with artificial intelligence (AI). The author is solely responsible for the contents of this article and the opinions and perspectives expressed in the article are solely those of the author. © 2026 Thomas Delaney. All rights reserved.
Live and Forgive 