The other day a priest friend of mine mentioned that a woman had recently come into his office, seen his San Damiano crucifix, and remarked, "That's not what Jesus looks like. Jesus is whole and loving and at peace now." It struck me how strange it is that people so often experience symbols, representations, and even actions of love as accusatory. While it's not false to say that Jesus is whole and loving and at peace, it is still by his stripes that we have been healed, still by his blood that we are saved. In fact, if you happen to believe the Gospels, Jesus' resurrected body maintained the marks of crucifixion - holes in his hands and feet, wound in his side.
Why do we see the Cross as accusation? I'm sure there are many reasons, but one of them is the "good person" complex we've allowed to creep into our modern consciousness. The thought goes something like this: I'm a good person. I don't harm anyone on purpose, I don't drink excessively, I don't use drugs, I pay my taxes, I am a contributing member of society. I just want to be happy and not get in the way of anyone else's happiness. Isn't that enough? Can't you just leave me alone, like I'm leaving you alone?
When this mentality encounters the Cross, it is confronted with a radically different view of human loving, which functions as challenge. According to the Cross, love is not staying out of each others' way (so long as no one is being overtly harmed). The Cross tells us that love is sacrifice and selflessness, even up to and including being pierced. In other words, love is being bound up in the community, pouring ourselves out for each other, not in order to be good, but because we are in love. More and more I am convinced that I must conform my life to that of the Lover - not performing actions because they will gain me attention, help me to progress along some path, or even because they are good, but because I am in love.
This is a subtle distinction. Of course I ought to perform actions that are good, and of course I ought to be aware of which actions are good and which are bad. But no one has to tell a man who loves his wife that he must not murder her. The rule has no relevance to him because he loves. Likewise, no one needs to tell one in love with Christ that he or she must pray, must go to Mass, must love others.
As Thomas Merton put it in his excellent (and excellently short) Life and Holiness, the Holy Spirit takes the Law and internalizes it - makes it internal to the Christian. The one who is in love no longer responds to the laws and rules, but acts from the internal impetus of the Holy Spirit, driving and enlivening love within them.
On the other hand, just as there is a danger of being turned off by the challenge of the Cross, there is a perhaps even greater danger of oversimplifying the whole spiritual life, as I have just done in the last few paragraphs. It is true to say "all we must do is love Christ," but there is no practical directive there. And why did I entitle this post "On the Side of Christ"? (back when I was in seminary, there was a retired priest who would get up to give a homily and say a few sentences, then say "Now where was I going with that?" & expect us to answer him. He played this off like he was trying to make sure we were paying attention, or trying to lead us to realize a point on our own, but the suspicion was always that he really didn't know where he was going with it and needed ideas to finish it off).
The side of Christ - that gaping wound into which Thomas was invited to put his hand - in some sense, this is our goal.
Why is this our goal? Because it is through Christ's sufferings that we are drawn to his heart. It is by being drawn through his side, as it were, uniting our sufferings to his, that we are drawn into the communion of his heart with the Father's, in the Holy Spirit. But he is not dead, but lives! - it is not just our sufferings that we must unite to Christ, but our joys as well. Christ's resurrected flesh maintained these wounds because they were no longer wounds but marks of love - not accusation, but the expression of his person, directed infinitely to our good and longing infinitely for our hearts.
And so must our hearts! In giving ourselves away, in allowing the Spirit to direct our lives in humility and love, the very wounds of our hearts will be sources of joy as well, to the extent that we have given them to Christ. But there is no way to give ourselves to Christ except by giving ourselves away to each other. And there is no way to do this except through the Spirit, which is to say that it is mysterious, and dependent on our vocation, which is the call of the Father to our own hearts through the whisperings of the Spirit, to be united to his Son.
From this perspective - the lens of love, which is not a question of lists and balances - questions of being a "good person" disappear. Read any of the saints, and they will tell you that they no longer matter (Paul - I now live no longer I, but Christ lives in me; Therese - I will spend my Heaven doing good on Earth, because I will be in union with Christ, who is at work in our hearts) - no saint has ever come to the end of their life and wondered whether they were a "good person." Instead, like St. Thomas More (whose feast we celebrate today), they very often died with a realistic understanding of their own sinfulness, but with an even greater trust in God's loving mercy. Before his execution, More wrote to his daughter from prison, "Although I know well, Margaret, that because of my past wickedness I deserve to be abandoned by God, I cannot but trust in his merciful goodness..."
The Mass, the sacraments are our salvation, not because they are objects, or forms or actions we perform in order to "get" salvation, but because they draw us to the heart of this man with the wounded side. Better: salvation is not a question of reaching a destination ("Heaven" as if it were a place), but of surrendering ourselves into the wounded yet glorious side of Christ, into that love for which we were made. Because, as Benedict XVI has said, Heaven is not a place, but a Person - Jesus Christ.
Why do we see the Cross as accusation? I'm sure there are many reasons, but one of them is the "good person" complex we've allowed to creep into our modern consciousness. The thought goes something like this: I'm a good person. I don't harm anyone on purpose, I don't drink excessively, I don't use drugs, I pay my taxes, I am a contributing member of society. I just want to be happy and not get in the way of anyone else's happiness. Isn't that enough? Can't you just leave me alone, like I'm leaving you alone?
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| No doubt. Also, word. |
This is a subtle distinction. Of course I ought to perform actions that are good, and of course I ought to be aware of which actions are good and which are bad. But no one has to tell a man who loves his wife that he must not murder her. The rule has no relevance to him because he loves. Likewise, no one needs to tell one in love with Christ that he or she must pray, must go to Mass, must love others.
As Thomas Merton put it in his excellent (and excellently short) Life and Holiness, the Holy Spirit takes the Law and internalizes it - makes it internal to the Christian. The one who is in love no longer responds to the laws and rules, but acts from the internal impetus of the Holy Spirit, driving and enlivening love within them.
On the other hand, just as there is a danger of being turned off by the challenge of the Cross, there is a perhaps even greater danger of oversimplifying the whole spiritual life, as I have just done in the last few paragraphs. It is true to say "all we must do is love Christ," but there is no practical directive there. And why did I entitle this post "On the Side of Christ"? (back when I was in seminary, there was a retired priest who would get up to give a homily and say a few sentences, then say "Now where was I going with that?" & expect us to answer him. He played this off like he was trying to make sure we were paying attention, or trying to lead us to realize a point on our own, but the suspicion was always that he really didn't know where he was going with it and needed ideas to finish it off).
The side of Christ - that gaping wound into which Thomas was invited to put his hand - in some sense, this is our goal.
 |
| Now, I know, I know, I just used this image last week. But I just love it so much, and I've spent the whole week turning it over and over and trying to come up with something worth saying about it. That or I'm running out of ideas, you decide. |
And so must our hearts! In giving ourselves away, in allowing the Spirit to direct our lives in humility and love, the very wounds of our hearts will be sources of joy as well, to the extent that we have given them to Christ. But there is no way to give ourselves to Christ except by giving ourselves away to each other. And there is no way to do this except through the Spirit, which is to say that it is mysterious, and dependent on our vocation, which is the call of the Father to our own hearts through the whisperings of the Spirit, to be united to his Son.
From this perspective - the lens of love, which is not a question of lists and balances - questions of being a "good person" disappear. Read any of the saints, and they will tell you that they no longer matter (Paul - I now live no longer I, but Christ lives in me; Therese - I will spend my Heaven doing good on Earth, because I will be in union with Christ, who is at work in our hearts) - no saint has ever come to the end of their life and wondered whether they were a "good person." Instead, like St. Thomas More (whose feast we celebrate today), they very often died with a realistic understanding of their own sinfulness, but with an even greater trust in God's loving mercy. Before his execution, More wrote to his daughter from prison, "Although I know well, Margaret, that because of my past wickedness I deserve to be abandoned by God, I cannot but trust in his merciful goodness..."
The Mass, the sacraments are our salvation, not because they are objects, or forms or actions we perform in order to "get" salvation, but because they draw us to the heart of this man with the wounded side. Better: salvation is not a question of reaching a destination ("Heaven" as if it were a place), but of surrendering ourselves into the wounded yet glorious side of Christ, into that love for which we were made. Because, as Benedict XVI has said, Heaven is not a place, but a Person - Jesus Christ.
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