Contemplative Haven

Apr 10 2009

At The Cross / A La Croix (Hillsong)

3 responses so far

3 Responses to “At The Cross / A La Croix (Hillsong)”

1. # Carolon 10 Apr 2009 at 9:50 pm

   Beautiful, evocative, and surprisingly, solace, for one who stood out of line for venerating a cross tonight. Jesus’ Body was absent from it, purposely, for the first time in decades –no crucifix, not a one!–because a new priest and soon, our only RC priest, thinks “it’s too easy to love the Christ, when we’re supposed to love the Cross.” But wood suffered not, eh? Wood did not bleed and suffocate. Wood did not redeem us. Wood did not pour out Blood and water.. Wood did not transform, but was transformed. And one understands the Cross quite quite well when one is sitting beside a dying loved one, or caring for them in nursing homes. And so, when people are going up to kiss the Cross– a teen we’ve watched grow from infant, who may have cancer of his body, the elderly whose bodies need help and patience getting there, my neighbors who have been injured in body by wars and nursed many other bodies in family tragedies, etc. etc. — oh, no — no, do not withhold the Corpus from them, no, don’t you dare proffer them two slats of wood to kiss with no Corpus in the entire church, only an aqua reredos with gold speckles. These people, these little lambs, came to kiss His wounds as Church–Wounds which they have venerated in fiat for years or decades and at great personal cost. Give them Jesus, you know?
2. # Gabrielleon 10 Apr 2009 at 11:43 pm

   Oh Carol, I understand everything you’re saying in your comment and the rational behind what you’re saying. But let’s take a moment just for you, apart from the rest of the congregation and the new priest, and think on what you’ve been allowed to experience. Much could be said, but yesterday you had a Holy Thursday almost bereft of consolation, and today you go to venerate Jesus and His Body is gone. His Body is gone.

   Edited to add: And not just gone. It had been taken away.
3. # Carolon 11 Apr 2009 at 8:47 am

   “Sir, at least tell me where they’ve taken Him so we can go get Him.” I see better now that it wasn’t only her own loss that the Magdalen grieved–she was thinking of His poor devastated Mother, and of their woman friends who’d not be able after all to at least dress His body for burial properly reverently –their only solace, their only gift of consolation to His mother– because the storm had brought on dusk too early on Friday, and then it was the Sabbath when nothing could be done, and now..now early in the morn of the third day, there was no Him! She grieved for all who had loved Him, who’d now have to live with the further horror of someone having stolen His body from them, too, and poor Him –perhaps laid/tossed(?) away carelessly, His wounds surely unbathed (and unkissed..) and His holy virgin carpenter body shrouded not, holy-entombed not, the gifts of the Magi and of Nicodemus and of Arimathea’s Joseph were useless, now, and perhaps the animals would get to Him… I truly wrestled with myself, not only because I was in full view of 2 priests and a deacon/friend whom I might let down, but because even the dearest suffering people had hobbled up there, and the littlest trusting, and the holy humblest Religious.. I wondered if I were doing something terrible, a terrible witness. I was heartbroken for them – had to look away. They are wounded and bereft of Him enough in this exile–at least give them His body. Husband did not understand (I understand better the apostolic sigh “Oh, her–well, what else can we expect?”) and he just barely joked of it, asking if I were going to the Easter vigil to see what changes will have been made there.

   And your reminder of Samuel’s “Is it I, Lord” –thank you from us all for that. That was only on the periphery of my memory, because the other “Is it I, Lord?” seems much more credible for such as me to ask. But the Lord would surely have us to know that He purposely picked a God-needing and simple fisherman and other laborers to help carry out the greatest mission ever, knowing full well –as did they– that they could do nothing without Him (just like us all). And later from the 11 regathered and then 12 again, with His mother quietly in the center of the Cenacle (her “Do whatever He tells you” echoes on), look what they did when He sent the Holy Spirit to them!

   Because of your post today on Holy Saturday, I think He must be quite visible this day to all in Purgatory (may He look directly at our loved ones first!); and I have thought (also perhaps wrongly) that the greatest Triune gift exceeded even the Lamb’s Sacrifice of atonement in our place: His resurrection for all! Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus gives us back to His holy Father Who desires us, in the greatest most selfless act of Love imaginable, and raises us even now. Who can truly think they are unLoved?? Oh, what an Easter of a morning was that first Easter Sunday morning, our sabbath now for all the ages. Amen, roll away the stone –see the glory of God!

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