Although God did not remove the wounds, many stories are told about the miracles performed by Padre Pio. One of my favorites is recounted by Ron Hansen in A Stay Against Confusion:

In World War II an American Army Air Corps squadron leader disobeyed the order to bomb San Giovanni Rotondo [the town where Padre Pio's friary was located] because he saw the gigantic form of a friar in the sky, fiercely diverting the aircraft, and was chagrined to have to write that in an official report. Worried that he had lost his faculties, the pilot found out about Padre Pio through offhand inquiries, and after the war visited Santa Maria delle Grazie, becoming one of Pio’s “children.”

My own far less dramatic (and unmiraculous) Padre Pio story took place in a hospital in Rome, where I had just had surgery. Groggy and feeling sick to my stomach, I opened my eyes to find a stranger in my room holding a picture and saying something to me in Italian. I think it was a picture of Padre Pio. I couldn’t tell whether the woman (or man—I’m not quite sure which it was) wanted to pray over me, give me the picture, or sell it to me. In any case I didn’t feel capable of coping with whatever it was.  So I mumbled in my best pidgin Italian, “Sono malata” (I’m sick). When next I looked, the apparition with the picture had vanished.

Soon after leaving the hospital I recounted the incident. One of my sisters said to me, “If you had taken the picture, you might have walked home from the hospital.”

Who knows? Perhaps I missed an opportunity.

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

On the other hand, the Bible does indicate some spiritual clothes that never go out of style. These are symbolized by the white garment which the neophytes, the new Catholics, received during the Easter Triduum.

We read in Galatians 3:27,

As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

Being clothed with Christ is an amazing thought; and if we carry the image of the garment one step further, it becomes even more astonishing. Psalm 104 tells us that God is “wrapped in light as with a garment,” and it seems that a garment of light is not only fitting garb for the divine, but also for us. In the Eastern rite Catholic churches (and the Orthodox churches), when the newly baptized receive the white garment, these words are sung:

Grant me a Robe of Light,
You who are robed in Light
as with a garment,
O Christ our God, so rich in mercy.

(See Baptism – Saint Elias Church)

Here are some of the results of putting on this robe of light — which is another way of saying that we have put on Christ.

First, all those differences that tend to cause division become unimportant when we are clothed with Christ:

As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3: 27-28)

Next, there are some very practical effects, including some rather awesome responsibilities, connected with this apparel.

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. (Colossians 3: 12-14)

And in the long run, we allow our mortal bodies to be clothed with immortality:

For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. (1 Cor 15:53)

If this new garment is not just made of white cloth, but is in truth a robe of light, it would seem to be a rather exalted form of dress for us lowly human beings. I imagine all of us, whether new Catholics or seasoned Christians, have already learned to our sorrow that we do not lead perfect lives after baptism.

But — oh, wonder of wonders! — Jesus does not wait until we are perfected to offer the robe. He gives it to us, and then calls us to grow into it.

The process of growing into that garment of light is called sanctification.

Now in a very important sense, we are already holy: each of us is God’s child — one of God’s holy ones. But sanctification means becoming more and more like Christ in our hearts, in our minds, and in our daily lives, more and more one with the compassion, mercy and love of God.

Can we wear the robe of light, taking on the mind and heart of Christ, while we are promoting war, or ignoring the plight of the poor, or saying nasty things about our next-door neighbor? We must choose to live so that to encounter us is to touch the hem of Christ’s garment; so that by grace our presence will be the healing presence of Christ for our fractured world.

“Who are these robed in white?” we ask, like the elder in the book of Revelation, “and where have they come from?” (7:13)

These are God’s people. We have come from here and from all over. We have put on Christ and are growing in holiness — often failing, but always forgiven, always praying to become more and more the presence of Christ for the world, so that to meet us is to meet Christ.

The importance of human life is revealed in the Incarnation, where the divine becomes human — doesn’t just visit us, like royalty sweeping in, dressed in ermine and silk, and then sweeping out again, but becomes one of us and one with us.

There is a holiness about our life and its details. There is holiness in our birth and holiness in such mundane activities as sitting here before the computer monitor or bathing or eating breakfast or washing dishes. The divine is present when we are with our families and friends and doing our work and enjoying our recreation, and God will be with us still in that sacred moment when we take our last breath.

Indeed, the glory of the Lord has come upon us.

Arise, shine; for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For darkness shall cover the earth,
and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you,
and his glory will appear over you.
(Isaiah 60:1-2)

Of course, the symbolism of the dream didn’t escape me even then. Where was the Holy? How often do we find ourselves searching for the holy without seeming to find it? How often do we fail to see that the holy — as well as the Holy One — has been right there all along, around us and in us? The reign of God is very near — even “within you,” as Luke shows Jesus saying.

These days, when I pray the Hail Mary, I am aware, if only in a confused, foggy way, of the importance and the possibility of being able to recognize the holy. With the greeting, “Hail, Mary, full of grace,” I find myself somehow joining with the angel Gabriel — the first to speak these words — as he sees and welcomes the holy in an obscure town called Nazareth. It is mysteriously essential for me to be able to distinguish, with God’s angelic messenger, the locus of grace and to be led in this way to Jesus.

But this is not all. Gabriel’s brief salutation also calls me to be aware of the holy in my own life. For after all, each of us is also the locus of the holy, and surprisingly enough the holy dwells in situations and in people where we would least expect it — and sometimes where we least desire to acknowledge it. Therefore we greet the holy not only in Nazareth but right here, and with Gabriel we bow reverently as we welcome Jesus, the Holy One of God, into our world.

‘Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’ (Exodus 3:5b)

Oh, I had read a romantically pious biography of her, and knew that an important element in her spirituality was surrendering oneself* to God. On that winter day in Saint Louis , though, the ground covered with a foot of snow, I had no idea of what this concept required — of both how difficult it is in real life (and how easy – see the whole meditation of Saint Therese at “To Surrender Oneself”).

I had not yet learned what Mother Therese knew — that there is nothing we can call our own. She spoke of “my extreme poverty” (in French, ma misère). She was conscious of having no virtue of her own: whatever goodness she had was from God, and even her spiritual life was more God’s affair than it was hers. She said that if she were called to account for her deeds, she would find herself with empty hands, her only recourse being the great mercy of God. But for her, as for us, this great mercy of God is sufficient.

I did not yet know that all-sufficiency of God’s grace. I knew it in my head, of course, having been well taught. But when I entered the Cenacle, not having grown into a spiritually mature daughter of Mother Therese (and who can ever claim to be entirely mature?), I was still afraid of what God might do when I failed in faith or devotion or human virtue. I was well aware of my own lukewarmness. I knew the pitiful state of my prayer. Would God abandon me because of that? And what if I made a terrible mistake or committed a dreadful sin? Was it possible to be so evil that I would not be forgiven?

How miserable I made myself!

Mother Therese wrote:

In a word, to surrender oneself is to die to everything and to self, to be no longer concerned with self except to keep it continually turned toward God.

To surrender oneself is, moreover, no longer to seek oneself in anything, either for the spiritual or the physical, that is to say, no longer to seek one’s own satisfaction, but solely the divine good pleasure.

To be “no longer concerned with self except to keep it continually turned toward God” and “no longer to seek oneself in anything, either for the spiritual or the physical” — I realized that this stance must also include the way I dealt with my failings. In other words, how could I be continually turned toward the good God and at the same time constantly focused on my own inadequacy? How could I be no longer concerned with self, if I were always berating myself, rather than praising God for the divine mercy freely poured out in Jesus Christ who died for me?

What about my prayer? What about other areas of my life? Here, too, it is impossible to be continually turned toward God if my primary concern is the quality of my own prayer — or the state of my faith, or my relationships, or my work, or anything else that I consider mine. A certain discipline is important, certainly, but even the discipline is not to be my primary focus. My focus must be God.

This turning toward God means handing over the results of my prayer or of any other undertaking. The fruits are important of course. Am I growing in faith, hope, and love? Does my life witness to what Paul calls, in Galatians 5, the “fruit of the Spirit”: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control”? If not, something is askew.

Success or failure, however, is another matter altogether. In the life of Mother Therese there were certainly what we would call failures — the most startling being that she was deposed from her role as superior general — in other words, she was fired. But what we human beings consider failure is not necessarily failure in God’s eyes. Just consider the colossal “failure” of the mission of Jesus as it seemed to end on the cross.

In the Spirit of this same Jesus, Mother Therese handed herself over to the one she knew as the Good God. Through grace, she answered the call to entrust herself to a Mystery she could not see, but whom she experienced as Mercy, Love, and Peace.

Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

(John 12:24)