“Whose feet will you wash?” This was the stinging question that a bishop posed to hermits scattered across the countryside in his diocese. They explained that they were doing battle with the devil by day and having mystical visions by night, but despite their obvious passion and religious fervor, these men seemed to be missing the mark in the Christian life. The bishop eventually gathered them into monastic communities where they could experience the weight of other people in real time and thus grow closer to the Lord. It can be easy to rationalize a modern hermetic lifestyle where our status, finances, personality, geography, or piety have us living at a distance from everyone else, yet such untouchableness means that our hearts shrivel and our spiritual lives atrophy along the slow path of death-by-hallucination. Let’s therefore have the courage this Lenten season to be like Jesus by living close to and with and for other people.
Ave Crux, Spes Unica.
Excellent thinking about the “community life that can sometimes be a cross” (Constitutions). And if the cross is our one hope …
Yes Amen!