Making Connections

 

The Church, in this Green Time has been focusing on the Bread of Life. The life won for us on the Cross is kept growing by this Bread. It is Love’s final step down into the struggle of our daily existence…to become for us what we eat.

 

Now we enter autumn. The harvest ripens. The leaves begin to show their colors. The days are a bit cooler. The Church gives us the Feast of the Holy Cross. On either side of September 14 are two Feasts of Mary, her birth and her sorrows. Is there any connection here? I think so.

 

Why did Mary have to suffer so much when she had no sin? Her sorrows are celebrated the day after the Feast of the Holy Cross. She, along with her Son, are figures for us of all those innocent ones who get caught up in the evils that plague the human family. This presents us with one of the deepest mysteries of our faith…innocent suffering.

 

In her wisdom, this may be why the Church presents these feasts before us in this harvest time. The crops we will harvest have been nourished by awful stuff we call manure. It is repulsive, rotten material. Yet from it we hold sweet corn, grapes from the vine, and countless other wonderful products. The readings this month present us with many healings. We get the sense that Jesus almost can’t keep up with the brokenness. Maybe the Cross is his solution.

 

Jesus and Mary were innocent. So are many at our borders, the people of Haiti, the people of Afghanistan. So are many children in our hospitals. I believe their suffering is redeeming us, that none of it is lost to a loving God. In looking at the mystery of the Cross we are asked to believe this. Mary invites us to give witness as she did…with little or no explanation. Suffering often makes us or breaks us. Maybe we are being called to decide now…when we are clear headed, that we will stand with these innocent ones in trust when our turn comes.

 

Nature’s beauty fades.

The leaves fade and fall.

I listen to the news and wonder…

what will those people do after the fires…the floods?

The mystery of your cross is everywhere.

The day ends, the grieving find shelter and try to sleep.

Yet we have your promise.

We hold it tight in faith…Faithful God.

 

How Big is Your Heart?

 

After challenging us to engender an ‘open world’ in chapter three of Fratelli tutti, Pope Francis now proposes that we have “A Heart Open to the Whole World.” (#128-153)

This brings before us the whole issue of migrants and refugees. Francis is not pollyanna about this crisis. To “welcome, protect, promote and integrate” these struggling people he knows that individual governments can’t do this alone. He comes right out and writes what many are thinking: we need to “develop a form of global governance” to address this issue as well as several other pressing issues such as war and weapons of mass destruction.

The US learned this long ago. The Revolutionary War had just ended. The 13 colonies were governed by The Articles of Confederation, and were suffering from huge debt from the war. Alexander Hamilton went to President Washington and told him the Articles were just not working, that the colonies needed to federate. Washington replied that the colonies would never agree to federation. Hamilton said, “Oh yes they will, Sir.” He proceeded to go to each colony and tell them that they would have a Guard, but we were going to have a US Army. And by the way, we would assume all their debt from the Revolutionary War, because we were going to have a US Treasury. They all signed on the bottom line, we had a Constitutional Convention and we became the United States of America. We Federated while simultaneously honoring state identity.

Francis is joining others globally in envisioning something similar for the nations of the world.

Something called The Constitution for the Federation of Earth already exists and is presently being considered by the United Nations. Many realize that immigration, climate crisis, poverty, health, and economic issues cry for global solutions in our day. One nation can no longer go it alone. The European Union is one effort to federate while honoring individual nation identity.

Interested? Order a copy of the Constitution named above and read it carefully, especially the Conclusion, “Our Great Hope at the Dawn of the 21^st Century,” and the Appendices. Go on line and check out “Citizens for Global Solutions.” Francis is right on target. Are our hearts big enough to envision a united world?

"See, I am making something new…do you not see it?"

The Final Step – Down

 

We have celebrated them all…all the great feasts: Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity…and now comes the capstone: Corpus Christi, or in English, The Body and Blood of Christ. It is the capstone, even though it is the final step – down. How so?

Take a wide view. We have a God who is driven by love to send its own deepest Word, its identity, into the human world to fix something that is broken. A relationship is broken. So, in the virgin’s womb he mends it. The Word creates a union between divinity and humanity that can never be broken again. Then he shows us what he intends to do with that hangover we call death…his and ours. After he brings us to life, he takes our very humanness home to the very throne of God and sends us his own Spirit to remind us what wonders he has done, to fill us with joy.

But bending way down to become one of us was not enough for this love. He cannot bear to leave us to struggle alone to respond to the Spirit. He found a way to take one more step – down. Yes, he bent way down to hide his majesty under the veil of our humble humanness. Yes, when he was silenced upon the cross, he made his many wounds become so many mouths to tell of his love. But he was not finished. One more step. He chose to bend down to become a thing. His veil this time is bread. He became our food…on hand, anytime, hidden...so as not to frighten even the tiniest child. So now it is our turn to bow down. For it is only in bending low that we can reach this Lover, who waits like a beggar for a meager return of love.

 Down into time-space; down into flesh; down into death-which-dies.

One more step:

Down into bread; it is finished.

You feed me with your risen Life.

Then it’s up from death to life, up from grave to glory, up with you into eternal life.

You would have it no other way.

The Cross as ‘Triumphant?’

 

I’ve had trouble with this expression. Maybe you have too. How on earth can we understand an instrument of torture to be a cause for triumph? Triumph comes with the resurrection, right? But what is the ‘law of the cross’ that makes this death instrument also a cause of triumph?

 The answer hit me like a ton of bricks in reading through some old notes. The cross is the symbol of every tear, every pain, every evil, every torture, every despicable human experience we can name. It’s that part of life that we wish we could do away with. It’s physical or emotional, and yes, even spiritual suffering, all too familiar to each of us as it comes our way. The key is in what happens to it. What happens to the cross?

 This instrument of torture is changed. It has become holy. A part of our Good Friday liturgy is the ‘Adoration of the Cross.’ Why do we ‘adore’ the cross? What has happened? The Paschal Mystery has become a transformation mystery. Which means, by the way, that it is a revelation of what happens to all our grief this side of the grave. It’s not going away. It’s going to be transformed. Yes, you’ve got that right…no drop of our suffering will be lost. It is going to be transformed into something beautiful. So bite your lip and hang on.

 Manure is awful stuff. It smells. It’s rotten. You wouldn’t keep it in the kitchen. But this awful stuff, just as awful as it is, when it is put out in the field, makes the most wonderful vegetables. Life comes from that rotten stuff, and life comes from the cross, not despite it. The ‘law of the cross’ is that every evil, even death, will be transformed into something good because that is what love does. Our challenge is to believe it: that even our stubborn arthritis will be transformed. The risen Jesus carries his wounds, but they are no longer ugly. They are his badges of honor. And we? What clues will we find in these post-Easter readings of the triumph to come?

 Really?

You’re going to transform everything I’ve been through?

What can I say but “Bring it on...My Lord and my God!”