Having our cell phones in the front pocket of our trousers is problematic.  When this is the case, our literal right-hand-man is an electronic device.  Out of anxiety or habit or both, we sneak our dominant hands down to that hidden place, not visible to those around us, and make contact with our beloved phone screens.  At first, we experience this as a blessed communion which makes us feel connected and secure, but as time passes, however, the awful weight of attachment sets in as we realize that a perpetual feedback loop of algorithms, which we are helpless in outsmarting, keeps us stuck in ourselves without the possibility of transcendence.  Let’s therefore be practical in the new year.  Let’s move our phones to our back pockets and place a rosary, a prayer card, a religious medal, a cross, a picture of a loved one, or something meaningful in our front pockets.  We will begin to reach down during those anxious moments and develop the quiet habit of prayer which, unlike certain faddy new year’s resolutions, will become the steady diet that saves our souls.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.

Imagine folding a full sheet of paper in half.  Then again in half, and then again and again and again.  No matter how many times that paper gets halved, there will always be a tiny speck that just gets smaller and smaller.  Now imagine two parallel lines and cut the space between them in half and again and again and so on.  No matter how many times that space is reduced there will always be some gap of separation between the two sides.  And so it is with the spiritual life.  We sin and try to make up for it, but some residue that we cannot shake persists.  We turn away from the Lord then repent, but the seed of separation remains intact, and we live in the tragic state of perpetual adjacency without the possibility of communion.  The good news is that in the same way something came from nothing in the beginning, at creation, something, our sin, will become nothing at the Lord’s coming.  The good news is that on the other side of our existential estrangement is not some deadbeat deity, but our friend who chooses to cross the threshold and come near to us.  The Word, indeed, is becoming flesh and we shall be saved.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.

The wise men are on their way to meet the baby Jesus during this season of Advent.  These are not religious men.  They do not belong to the class of chosen people, Israel, upon whom the Lord has looked with great favor.  They know nothing of prophecies, sacrificial offerings, laws, and worship, yet they pay attention to what they do know, the things they see and touch and feel through their senses, and, because of their great fidelity to what they do know, they, in fact, are the first ones to meet the new born king.  Before we scold people this holiday season for not being religious enough or for lacking the precise theological language to explain the meaning of Jesus’ birth, we can take a step back and appreciate the beauty and wonder of salvation: how the Lord plots out a journey for each and every one of us, mysteriously draws us to the truth, and invites us to respond in love to the gift of Jesus.  During this Advent season, therefore, let’s contemplate the hearts of these Magi and pray for the courage to undertake our own magical trek across the desert on our way to the truth.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.

Lou Holtz once famously quipped that “Notre Dame is a place where no explanation is necessary if you’ve been there, but, if you have not, no explanation is possible.”  The campus, indeed, captures the imaginations of visitors and alums alike.  While most universities suffer from concrete sprawl and an architectural identity crisis, Our Lady of the Lake, as she is formally known, has a heart, a basilica and a golden dome, out of which quads and gargoyles and greens and spires unfold endlessly in a coherent and flowing pattern of beauty.  The feeling of hospitality is palpable as the iconic yellow bricks, which were dug from the banks of the lake and molded by the brothers themselves, practically hug passers by, and the dazzling rays that emanate from Our Lady herself, atop the dome, serve as a constant reminder that the founders of the university wanted to build something special for generations of women and men whom they would never meet.  Let’s spend this week examining our own inner campus.  Let’s ask the Lord to give us hearts that are “tender, strong and true.”  Let’s trust the process of beauty that unfolds in us, for others, and “wake up the echoes” the world over in all that we think, say and do.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.