Years later, reading Cardinal Bernardin’s book of personal reflections, The Gift of Peace, I found that others had had “religious experiences” around him as well. And that was his intention: I tried to look everyone in the eye and make each person feel that he or she was important, the only one present at the moment. . . . When you convince people that you really care and that, even if hundreds of others are around, at that particular moment they are the only ones that count—then you establish a new relationship. . . . You have somehow mediated the love, mercy, and compassion of the Lord. In
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