The Trojan horse is upon us!  In a fully globalized and digitized postmodern society, symbols abound, flitting across our phone screens and through our psychological spaces at top speed.  They are really quite marvelous: the logo of our favorite baseball team, a flashback photo from our social media account, a religious icon, an advertisement for tacos, a laughing emoji, all in rapid succession!  The invisible influence of the symbol gives it a kind of divine mystique – hence the prominent place of symbols in liturgical worship – yet one should be careful about the soldiers who lay hidden within.  Symbols can serve as host for another person’s fears, anxieties, insecurities, and general baggage.  We must therefore be on our guard at all times (1 Pet 5:8).  With Jesus standing watch at the door to our souls (Jn 10:9-11), our intellects, like a two-edged sword (Heb 4:12), have the power to confront and deconstruct any symbol that comes knocking.  We shall not only be kept safe, but we shall be of service to the multitude of these masked enemies by knowing them deeply and gently redirecting them to Jesus who is desperate to keep them safe too.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.

There was a clarity in his soul about the meaning of things.  Everything simply meant the Lord.  His eyes opened and the day began, the Lord.  His tunic fit neatly over his shoulders and pressed against his skin, the Lord.  The bread in his hand nourished his body, the Lord.  His lathe steadied long planks of wood, the Lord.  A stranger’s face, the Lord, a morsel at lunch, the Lord, slaking his thirst at the well, the Lord, a cut and a bruise, the Lord, dusty sandals, the Lord, a handful of nails, the Lord, speaking and feeling and breathing and being, the Lord.  In a culture that celebrates interpretation at the expense of the deeper meaning of things, it’s easy to get stuck in a mode of half-hearted truth-seeking.  Let’s instead go all the way to the limit and choose to see the Lord in all that we think, say and do.  We shall become so theocentric, that, like Jesus, we will actually start believing – perhaps for the first time – that we are in fact the Lord’s.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.

Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water!  We get angry and frustrated, then, in an instant, “to hell with it!”  But such impulsiveness simply reveals our own intellectual deficiencies.  Are we really that underdeveloped that we cannot mentally separate out the weeds from the wheat (Mt 13:24-30)?  Are we that obtuse that we cannot differentiate sea junk from a great catch of fish (Mt 13:47-50)?  Are we so self-absorbed that we cannot distinguish between a bleating goat and a gentle lamb (Mt 25:31-46)?  The next time we get stuck on line 35d of our income tax form, or are desperately searching for our car keys, or accidentally overhear a friend gossiping about us, let’s experiment with pausing before going into terminator mode.  We will discover that our spiritual blindness has been causing us to exit relationships, abort projects, and, tragically, separate ourselves out from the life that has been given to us.  We will gradually begin to recognize that everything in our lives – our taxes, our vehicles, our friendships, and the rest – are precious, like that baby, and deserve to be seen, known and cared for no matter what.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica. 

There is a building located at 2016 Millennium Blvd. Cortland, Ohio that captures my imagination.  It is not one of the raucous football stadiums of my youth nor one of the sublime cathedrals of my adulthood, but rather the local Walmart, and I love to be there.  For some reason that I do not yet comprehend, the Lord’s voice echoes through the produce section, down the dairy aisle, across the home goods, and all the way to the check-out lanes.  Perhaps the limited pretensions of this store combined with the common task of trying to run a household allows a feeling of community-in-transparency to abound in all of us shoppers.  And though it is true that the Walmart business model is deficient in many ways, who am I to judge how the Lord chooses to draw me into relationship and speak the simple Word of communion to my heart?  Let’s therefore try to cultivate a spirit of openness – this week and beyond – to the possibility that the Lord will encounter us in the ordinary and anonymous circumstances of our human lives.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.