Soul of Christ, sanctify me.
Body of Christ, save me.
Blood of Christ, inebriate me.
Water from the side of Christ, wash me.
Passion of Christ, strengthen me.
O good Jesus, hear me:
Within thy wounds hide me;
Let me never be separated from thee.
From the wicked foe defend me.
At the hour of my death, call me
And bid me come to thee,
That with thy saints I may praise thee
For ever and ever. Amen.

- 14th century prayer

Lately I have been praying the “Anima Christi” and would like to share with you some reflections on this beautiful prayer, both in this post and the ones to follow. Today I will stick with the first line, because the richness of these few words, I believe, encompasses and prepares us for the rest of the prayer.

Soul of Christ, sanctify me.
Anima Christi, sanctifica me.

We tend today to think of soul as contrasted with body. The ancient Hebrews did not split the soul from the body. So even though this prayer dates from the Middle Ages, it helps me to consider the word “soul” as signifying the whole person. (We still hear echoes of this meaning in phrases such as “There was not a soul in sight.”)

The soul is who one most truly is.  According to Ron Hansen, in his book, A Stay Against Confusion:

We could put Anima Christi this way then: Wind of Christ, Air that we breathe of Christ, Thereness of Christ, Is-ness of Christ, Truth of Christ, Self-consciousness of Christ, What we do not know of Christ, Christ’s understanding of himself: sanctify me.

Soul of Christ, sanctify me.

To sanctify is to make holy.

“For I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt, to be your God; you shall be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:45).

On an essential level, we are already holy, made in God’s image and baptized into Christ.  On another, existential level, we pray for that sanctification which is the total transformation of our hearts and our lives.

J. K. S. Reid, in the venerable Theological Wordbook of the Bible, speaks of the “constant disposition of God to sanctify things and persons for his purposes.” It is not with reluctance that we are sanctified: God wants to sanctify us. God desires to recreate us through Christ.

Not only that, but we ourselves long for this sanctification in Christ, whether or not we are aware of it. In fact, every day at Mass, the priest prays quietly in our name, putting our desire into words: “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”

We cannot sanctify ourselves, but we must cooperate in the work of sanctification, which turns out – wonder of wonders – to be our own sharing in the divinity of Christ.And so we pray:

Soul of Christ, sanctify me.

May your holy being sanctify my whole being, weak and broken though I may be. May you transform me into what I am called to be, which is what you are, “for the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father” (Hebrews 2:11). Soul of Christ, may I share your divine life, your holiness, your consecration, whatever that means for my own life.

Soul of Christ, sanctify me.

O Christ, in your wholeness, make me whole. In your goodness, make me good; in your compassion, make me compassionate; in your mercy, may I become mercy for the world. O Christ in me and around me and filling the whole universe, fill me and transform me so that nothing in my own soul (which has never been my own), nothing in who I am, is untouched by the beauty of your most holy, loving, and gracious soul.

Anima Christi, sanctifica me.
Soul of Christ, sanctify me.

- – - – -

Crucifix from the Houston Cenacle
Photo copyright © Rose Hoover, rc

Hawk under umbrella

I was in the kitchen when I heard a wild beating and clattering.  All I could see from the window was a confusion of feathers and very large wings under the patio bench.  Since the feathers appeared to belong to a hawk, I put on my raincoat and gloves (even though the temperature was hovering around 90 degrees), as I have a deep respect for the talons and beak of even an injured hawk.  Thus protected (probably inadequately), I went out and pulled one of the potted tomato plants away from the bench, hoping this would help the bird escape its confines, and then backed away.

Our good neighbors, working on the house across the street, saw the hubbub, and came over.  By this time the hawk was lying still and was panting open-beaked on the hot concrete.  She (at least we called it “she”) looked for all the world as if she were dying. One person suggested that we shade her with an umbrella, which we did.  And since she seemed unlikely to pose a threat at this point, I removed my raincoat and gloves in order to avoid my own heat stroke.

Meanwhile I had called Alachua County Animal Services, and before long a nice young man who knew much more about hawks than we did, arrived.  By this time, though, the hawk had begun to revive, and after a few minutes of sitting under the umbrella and then on the patio wall, gave a great cry and flew into one of our huge live oaks.  She rested there for a while, and eventually disappeared.

Second hawk
The second hawk arrived quietly (unlike the first one) four days later, early in the morning.  I tried to call Animal Services again, but it was Memorial Day, and the office was closed.

Juvenile hawk on patio wall

This time it was a juvenile.  She sat on the patio wall for a while and observed us.  She moved to the driveway, then to the bushes, and from there flew to the roof.  We were relieved that she had moved to a higher realm, because while the hawk was watching us, a large neighborhood cat was watching the hawk. (However, I do think the cat would have gotten an unpleasant surprise had he actually tried to grab this birdie.)

Anyhow, we were hoping the young hawk had flown home, but after lunch, there she was again, on the edge of the carport and later on the railing of the deck on the other side of the house.  In fact, she hung around most of the day.  We put water out for her on the railing, while she mildly kept an eye on us and on her surroundings, seemingly unafraid.

The next day she was gone.

Now let me tell you something strange. The first hawk – the injured one who eventually flew away – clattered onto the patio at a time when a friend had recently moved into hospice to die.  The second hawk – the young one who hung around all day – came without disturbance the day after our friend had peacefully died.

I don’t believe that the dead – or the dying – come to us literally in the form of animals. But this I do believe:

• That everyday life sometimes works in symbols, and that the symbols, if we are paying attention, can at times reveal to us a truth deeper than what our senses can perceive.
• That there is a mysterious communion among God’s holy creatures, living and dead, human or not.  (See “With a Little Help from My Friends” for a quote from Saint Ignatius of Loyola.  See also Romans 8:18-23 for an example of the relationship between humanity and the rest of creation.)

Were the hawks showing us something about our friend, first dying, then reborn in the peace of God?  Or were they just hawks who, without any significance, blundered into our yard? Who can say for sure?  What we can say is that these wild creatures brought consolation and delight in a time of sadness.

- – - – - – - – - -

Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars,
and spreads its wings towards the south?
(From God’s words to Job, 39:26)

As they were growing this year, I noticed that one especially tall plant was leaning precariously toward the sidewalk. I knew I would have to stake it, if it were not to topple over onto the concrete. But I procrastinated, and as it grew and the buds got larger and heavier, I wondered why it was still upright. So one day I walked over to take a look.

What I saw was both simple and wonderful. The nearby cabbage palm had caught the lily in a loop of fiber and held it up – an almost invisible support. (When you see the pictures, you might think that I had tied a string to the lily, but it was all done without any human intervention.)

We have been witness lately, directly or indirectly, to enormous disruption and destruction: war, earthquakes, volcano, a cataclysmic oil spill. Is this disharmony within nature (including human nature) the ultimate reality, we may ask?

No. I am convinced that each small glimpse of beauty or harmony is a pledge of the beauty and harmony at the heart of all things.

“I get by with a little help from my friends,” sang the Beatles. And so do we all, whether we know it or not – even if we think we have no friends. This interdependence, which we human beings (or perhaps more to the point, we lift-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstrap-Americans) tend to forget, is part of the loveliness of creation.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola might agree with the Beatles on this point: we do somehow make it through life with the help of both human and non-human friends. During the First Week of the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, there is an intense awareness of personal sinfulness and also an awareness of the blessed relationship between the sinner and the rest of creation:

Ignatius speaks of “a cry of wonder accompanied by surging emotion as I pass in review all creatures. How is it that they have permitted me to live, and have sustained me in life! Why have the angels, though they are the sword of God’s justice, tolerated me, guarded me, and prayed for me! Why have the saints interceded for me and asked favours for me! And the heavens, sun, moon, stars, and the elements; the fruits, birds, fishes and other animals–why have they all been at my service!

The spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius, trans. by Louis J. Puhl, S.J. (Chicago: Loyola, 1951) [60].

The deeper reality at the core of creation is not our sinfulness, nor the very real pain and disturbances that can shake us to the core, nor the sorrows that can weigh on us until we feel we must break apart – but the beauty and harmony of God, as experienced in the communion of God’s holy creatures.

We get by, in spite of everything, even in spite of death, by the grace of God – and like the lily, with a little help from our friends.

Should we be groping in darkness,
may it be only your cloud
overshadowing us
to bring us to birth.

Should our hearts shrink in fear,
send your tongues of fire
to make them bold.

And when the familiar has lost its welcome,
then breathe us into your future,
and be there
waiting to embrace us.

AMEN.

And there is a darkness that is in reality light, but in our limited perception, it seems dark to us. This is a darkness that is as necessary for our growth and spiritual health as nighttime darkness is necessary for some plants to bloom.

This we may call a blessed darkness, a holy darkness.

It may be experienced simply as not being able to see or understand, because we are human and the realm of God is the realm of Holy Mystery. While God is closer to us than we are to ourselves, God is also Other.  God is not like us.  “My thoughts are not your thoughts,” God tells us, “nor are your ways my ways” (Isaiah 55:8).   Sometimes we are given the grace to see how God is working in our lives and to experience in our prayer the light of God’s presence.  But often we can’t see.

One form of this darkness is the experience of waiting on God.

We see an important example of this near the end of the Easter season, after the Ascension of Jesus into heaven.   For a time, the disciples and friends of Jesus, along with Mary his mother, must wait in holy darkness.

Jesus has left them.  At least it seems that way.  Luke tells us in the first chapter of Acts that “a cloud took him out of their sight.”  Before leaving, Jesus had cautioned his disciples “not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father.”  So they go to the Upper Room, the Cenacle, and pray together.  They don’t know what they are supposed to do otherwise.  They don’t know what their mission is to be.  They don’t know how they are supposed to deal with the lack of Jesus’ visible presence in their lives.

This is the holy darkness of waiting in prayer. It means waiting in total dependence on God, since they are helpless on their own to bring about that for which they long.  This is the blessed darkness of Mystery, an obscurity that in reality is the Light and presence of Christ in newness, though experienced as absence and as emptiness and as unknowing, because it can’t yet be perceived until the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost.

There is a necessary waiting that brings us face to face with our own weakness and need and desire for God, and with the fact that we can’t control God or save ourselves.  It is a waiting that removes our conceit, along with any pride in our spiritual experiences.  We then accept the obscurity of this prayer as sacred, for when we are truly waiting on God, the unknowing that feels like darkness is filled with the invisible light of Christ.

God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.
(1 John 1:5)

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.  Live as children of light…
Ephesians 5:8

When I was a child, my dad, who taught aerospace engineering, would talk to me about “time dilation,” which I still find fascinating these many years later.

I learned that you could start out on a space ship to a distant planet and be away for a only a few years; but when you got home, everyone you knew would be long dead and gone, because time would have slowed down for you in relation to how they were experiencing time on earth.  Time, for a moving object – or a moving person – slows down more and more the closer the speed of the object approaches the speed of light.

Star Trek never seemed to me to take this into account in its adventures.  But in case you’re a Trekkie, I just learned that the Warp Drive on the spaceship Enterprise somehow creates an artificial time-space bubble that solves the problem.

Back on this earth, Einstein showed us that time is not constant.  Time is not an absolute.  It is light, the speed of light that is the constant (but even that is constant only in a vacuum).  And for a moving object, time theoretically would stop at the speed of light – if it were possible for it to reach the speed of light.

Light, not the speed, but light itself, rather than time, is the constant for us as Christians too, for Christ is our light. Christ is the light that never fails: unchanging, unwavering, undimmed.

What is more, we are called to become light.

In the gospel of John, we hear Jesus saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (8:12)

In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus says, “You are the light of the world. … let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven” (5:14, 16)

Being light is not automatic, however.  It doesn’t happen just because we call ourselves Christian.  If we are light, it is because we are united with Christ, our Light.  We are light because we walk in the light of Christ, even as we stumble and fall and let ourselves be raised up again.  We are light because we are growing in becoming who Christ is – growing in love, mercy, and compassion; becoming peacemakers; becoming comforters of those who mourn; becoming a healing presence, rather than one of division; taking on the mind and heart of Christ, so that our lives are radiant with the holy Light that dwells within us.

Watch Cybernun’s video illustrating the lyrics of the Russian hymn,
“God, You Are Clothed in Light“

We nod our heads when we read in the Gospel of Matthew:

Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. (18:5)

Where do we find hope as members of this church whose leaders have too often not received the child as Christ?

Yes, we may reasonably ask why the media must focus on the Catholic Church, when respectable fathers of families travel to Indonesia and other countries to have sex with children, thereby supporting the lucrative human trafficking and child prostitution industries.  And when many others simply stay home and rape their own daughters.

It is undeniable that the Catholic Church is the organization that people love to hate.  However, in the Church we lay claim to a higher sort of life.  It is doubly shocking when persons who proclaim goodness are found to have wallowed in or abetted evil.  So perhaps the media can be forgiven for being particularly hard on those who represent the Church.

“Where was God?” countless victims ask.  “Where was God when I was being abused?”

We must not attempt a facile response, and indeed any words seem inadequate in the face of such heartache.  The only response, I believe – though it is not an answer to the question of why it happened – is that God was where God always is when the beloved is being betrayed and harmed: right there, in sorrow, in pain.  Right where God was when Jesus was being crucified.

As for a reason why, Christianity offers us no answer except for the reality of human freedom – a gift which is too often misused.

Sin, even when we think it is private, is always communal in its effects.  While those who have not been abused can never totally understand the experience of those who were, still we all share in some way – though a far lesser way to be sure – in the consequences of the evil.  We are a wounded Church this Easter season.

But if in the Crucifixion of Christ we are given a promise of presence – of a God who shares in the grief and pain – in the Resurrection we are also offered the assurance that evil does not have the last word.  Evil will never have the last word. In spite of all appearances to the contrary, the love, goodness, and holiness of God are stronger than even the most horrendous evil.

Do we just sit around and wait for that day when all tears will be wiped away?  No, of course not.  We must take strong, practical action to prevent abuse – and where possible to ease the suffering of those who have been abused – even if that means changing time-honored ecclesial structures.  And we must nurture the spiritual life, so as to grow in union with the Risen Christ, for this is the only way that the divine goodness and loving-kindness will be more clearly manifested in the daily life of the Church.

“By his holy and glorious wounds,
may Christ our Lord guard us and keep us.”

Preparation of the Paschal Candle at the Easter Vigil

• the blind see (Isaiah 29:18)
• the desert blooms and rejoices (Isaiah 35)
• the barren bear many children (Isaiah 54:1)
• the wolf shall dwell with the lamb [along with other unlikely companions] (Isaiah 11)
• the meek inherit the land (Psalm 37:11)

The primary example of the unexpected way in which God works is the cross.

How ridiculous it must have looked — that sign, “King of the Jews” above someone who was stripped, naked, and helpless on the cross!  The one who had claimed to be the bread of life, but now can’t even scratch his own nose, much less feed anyone!  Surely the invitation to take up our cross and follow Jesus is the height of folly.

This wasn’t even a noble death.  Crucifixion was the most shameful method of execution.  If Jesus had been a war hero dying in battle, it might have been considered an honorable death.  Even if he had been a great Greek or Roman philosopher who made a dramatic speech in his defense — that might have been less shameful.  But Jesus didn’t say much at all — a few words, a cry of anguish.  Even as a death, it was disappointing in human eyes.

But as Paul says:

The message of the cross is folly for those who are on the way to ruin, but for those of us who are on the road to salvation it is the power of God.

(1 Corinthians 1:18 NJB)

Who would have guessed that out of this weakness — when Jesus couldn’t use his hands, for they were nailed to the wood; couldn’t walk, for his feet were nailed; had wounds on his head from the thorns that were part of the clown costume that the soldiers had made him wear, and his chest wounded by the spear — who would guess that out of this weakness would come new life for the world, new life for each of us?

Who would guess that a public execution would show us the power of God?

Who would guess that God’s power would be made perfect in weakness?  (See 2 Cor 12:9.)

So I was in the yard, wielding the pitchfork, hefting piles of leaves into a bin, when a nice-looking young man called out from the sidewalk, “I could help you!”

“Thank you, but no,” I replied. “I’m getting my exercise.”

He walked over and persisted, “I could do that, and you could give me a couple of dollars. I need a beer real bad.”

I tried to explain that since the city no longer accepts leaves in plastic bags, and we have only two plastic cans, there wasn’t a lot that could be done in one day.

“I’ll do two bins, and you can give me three dollars!”

“No,” I said again. “The doctor wants me to exercise.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he responded, looking sympathetic, evidently commiserating with whatever grave medical condition would inspire doctor-ordered exercise. “But I need beer,” he added pleasantly. “I drink a lot.”

“Why do you drink a lot?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I guess I’m an alcoholic.”

“That’s not so good,” I said.

“Yeah, man. The stuff’ll kill you.”

“Yes, it can. It killed an uncle of mine.”

“For real, man?” (He sounded surprised, as if he had not seriously believed the danger up until now.)

“Yes, he got cirrhosis of the liver and died.”

After a few more moments of conversation, we shook hands, and he headed off toward downtown.

“Have a nice day. God bless you,” he called out.

“You have a nice evening,” I said. “And don’t drink too much beer!”

When I recounted the conversation to Sister Betty, she pointed out that he needs some lessons in marketing, if he really wants to be paid for yard work. I agreed that his sales pitch left something to be desired, but at least he didn’t claim that he needed the money to bury his dear grandma.

All of us are broken in one way or another. Most of us are just better at hiding it – or at least we think we are better at hiding it. And we are all helpless to mend ourselves.

Fertile powerlessness

The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are very spiritually sound. Here are the first three:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol [or substitute here another addiction]—that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

(For the rest of the Twelve Steps, click here.)

Some of us not in AA or other Twelve-Step programs still suffer under the illusion that we can manage our lives by ourselves. Saint Paul, though, knew that he could not.  He heard God telling him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

My power is made perfect, God says, not in your strength, but in your weakness.

Whether we are raking leaves or longing for beer or managing a Fortune 500 corporation, we stand in need of the powerful and tender mercies of the God who loves us.

The fallen spring leaves witness to the new life already emerging on the oaks, which will look scraggly and unkempt for a few weeks. Our own unkempt, ragged hearts, stripped of what we thought was our strength, offer the fertile weakness through which God’s grace brings new life — both for us and for the blessing of the world.

By what boundless mercy, my Savior,
have you allowed me to become a member of your body?
Me, the unclean, the defiled, the prodigal.
How is it that you have clothed me
in the brilliant garment,
radiant with the splendor of immortality,
that turns all my members into light?

Symeon the New Theologian, trans. by John Anthony McGuckin,
The Book of Mystical Chapters:
Meditations on the Soul’s Ascent from the Desert Fathers
and Other Early Christian Contemplatives

Faced with the grandeur and goodness of God, it is normal to feel unworthy. However, the feeling that we are worthless is not from God. There is a big difference between unworthiness and worthlessness. Each one of us is of infinite worth. “You were bought with a price,” says Saint Paul in 1 Corinthians 6.

Where worthiness is concerned, there are, as I see it, at least three stances that are not what we are called to as Christians.

• The “I’m worthy, but it’s doubtful that you are” stance. This is the self-righteous position. I’m afraid that this false sense of worthiness too often raises its head among church people, especially where there is finger-pointing at those we don’t think are quite orthodox enough in their worship or their beliefs—all the while being assured that we ourselves are totally correct with no possibility of error.

• I may not be worthy now, but if I work really hard I can make myself worthy. If I just pray enough and discipline myself enough and do enough good works, I can make myself worthy. This is actually a form of an ancient heresy called Pelagianism, which says, basically, that human beings have the ability to choose the good apart from any movement of God in us, and therefore to save ourselves by our own efforts.

• Despair. The problem with thinking that we have to make ourselves worthy is that no matter how hard we try, we find it’s never enough. We can never be good enough. We can never be unselfish enough or generous enough or forgiving enough or attend enough masses or go to confession often enough or pray well enough to be worthy. So trying to make myself worthy can easily lead to discouragement and eventually to giving up. I can never be worthy, so why try?

But wonder of wonders, we don’t have to be worthy!

In Christ, we are offered the grace to entrust all to the heart of God, and there we are accepted — with our sins, our neuroses, our emotional quirks, our inadequacies, our divided heart — and in the spacious and welcoming heart of God we are shown that peace lies in the handing over of all to God who is always sufficient.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast.
For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Ephesians 2:8-10