November 27, 2021

What is the significance of both the Jewish religious leadership and Roman soldiers being complicit in the death of Jesus?  Perhaps the message is that no “camp” can rescue us from our fallen natures and distorted thinking.  Indeed, the Jews spent their days meditating on the revealed word and offering worship in the temple, while the Romans were bastions of order, the rule of law and justice, yet neither were able to see who Jesus was or hear what he was saying.  This tragic comedy of errors, however, should not just be relegated to the past.  Don’t we identify with our own camps?  I’m Catholic, I’m Christian, I’m American, I’m Democrat, I’m Republican.   What prevents us from just going with the flow?  What prevents us from conforming to the same collective and fuzzy logic of the masses?  In the great drama of life, there is only one trustworthy position:  to step out beyond political ideas and religious feelings to the Christ-place.  Here, in this act of trust, we will discover our true selves, naked and vulnerable before God, but we shall spend our lives rejoicing in the truth.  Let us therefore move past the false safety of being someone in the eyes of the world by making that definitive decision, with Jesus, to enter into the deep security of the Father’s love.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.