What we do with our bodies is the truth.  The mind, indeed, has a way of obscuring the situation of our human lives.  We make up stories that help justify our complacency or our vices or our closed-heartedness, but, while these rational lies might seem like they are buying us time for our big moment, we are really squandering our days until there are none left.  The priests who passed the wounded man on the side of the road probably told themselves, “Tomorrow” or “Next time,” but their bodies told a different story: they faded into the distance while their helpless fellow human being languished in the gutter.  During this season of Lent, let’s focus on the risk of living in a bodily way.  Let’s be so integrated that we test every narrative that is generated by our imaginations with our hands and our feet.  Let’s demand consistency between our ideas and our actions.  Such a union of body and soul cannot help but to be fruitful, as the truth takes root in us and Christ is born into the world.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.

With each other

Silently seeking

How to suffer

The children!

The shadows!

The future!

Ourselves!

Step right up

To this ladder

Reach the top

It does matter.

Then, rung by rung,

We make your way

Down to earth

Where we say:

“The Truth!

At Hand!

Eureka!

Praise God!”

Ave Crux, Spes Unica.

That damn clock!  

There is an interesting progression of pronouns in the biblical narrative that invites our spiritual growth.  The distance between the Lord and his people early on is clear:  HE created heaven and earth.  HE promised land and descendants.  HE parted the waters.  HE gave the law.  HE established a kingdom.  These expressions become refreshingly personal, however, as the journey unfolds:  YOU are my God.  YOU are my light and my salvation.  YOU give wisdom to the simple.  YOU take no delight in sacrifice.  Finally comes the integration, where the human person and divine life coincide so deeply that they share the singular voice of communion:  I am the way, the truth, and the life.  I am the good shepherd.  I am the gate.  I am the resurrection.  During this Lenten season, let’s pray for the grace to have our hearts and minds transformed so that our personal pronouns may declare the truth and serve as a healing balm to all those whom WE encounter.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.

The Roman Catholic Church does not save people.  God saves people – hence, the name Jesus literally means God Saves.  The Roman Catholic Church is the living tradition of Jesus on earth.  It thus makes sense that the Church is desperate to maintain the memory and presence of Jesus even if it means rigidity or being misunderstood or conflict.  Such intentionality and commitment allows Jesus to be known in very real ways.  Indeed, the Church’s insistence on priesthood and sacramentality and rubrics and calendars gives us a sense of Jesus and perhaps allows us the dignity of exploring how Jesus, like a well-formed key, fits neatly into our complex human wounds.  Once we know and believe in Jesus at this level, however, the wound will only ever heal from within, in the intimacy and secrecy of a hidden life with the divine.  The Roman Catholic Church is thus necessary in this grand project of salvation, but only because God Saves.  Let’s therefore learn to strike a balance between respect for the legitimate and awesome Jesus tradition of the Church with a willingness to take a real risk of faith, outside the bounds of the safety of institutional life, on the God who Saves.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.