Recent journal entries:

Blood of Christ, Inebriate Me
Body of Christ, Save Me
Anima Christi (Soul of Christ)
A Visitation of Hawks
With a Little Help from My Friends

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Anima Christi - 4

Water from the Side of Christ, Wash Me

Water from the side of Christ, Wash me.
Aqua lateris Christi, lava me.

Who of us is not aware of the need for cleansing? We are all sinners, and all in need of mercy. As Sister Elizabeth is fond of saying, “Everyone is 100% in need of mercy! There is no one who is just 99% in need of mercy.”

Who is worthy of Christ?

I ran across a website called “Long Hair Care Forum,” where one post was from a woman who expressed her own feelings of unworthiness. (I can’t give you a link to this discussion, as the thread seems to have been deleted.) She wants desperately to entrust herself to God, but is holding back as she feels undeserving of Jesus and of happiness.

A wise and holy response comes from someone who calls herself “Your Mary Kay Consultant.”

“Sugar,” she says, “we are all unworthy.”

She goes on to point out that no one deserves God’s love, and that it is Satan who tries to make us forget that Christ died for us. But Satan, she adds, has already been defeated.

And it is true — feeling that we are unworthy is normal, because before the grandeur and goodness of God, we are indeed all unworthy. But the feeling that we are too unworthy to come into God’s presence is not from God — it is from the evil one who wants us to stay away from God.

And the feeling that we are worthless is not from God. There is a big difference between unworthiness and worthlessness. We are of infinite worth. “You were bought with a price,” Saint Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 6 and 7.

From the cross Jesus says, “It is finished.”

There is nothing more to give. The name of the water from the side of Christ is: totality. The sheltering sac around the heart has been pierced and the heart itself rent. The water and the blood now announce together: “All is given.”

(Mother Mary Francis, Anima Christi: Soul of Christ, p 40)

Jesus has given all for you and for me. We are accepted without reserve. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound!

So we pray, not in despair, but in gratitude:

Water from the side of Christ, wash me.
Aqua lateris Christi, lava me.

Sister Rose Hoover

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Waterfall photograph (from Butterfly Rainforest) by Rose Hoover, rc

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