Month: September 2015

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”

The Cross is the meeting place of lovers. That “strange and uncouth thing,” as the poet George Herbert calls it, reveals the incompleteness of our human loves and the all-sufficiency of divine love. It is signaled in what might be called the erotic liturgy of The Book of Common Prayer, a liturgy which is shaped and governed by the Cross, the liturgy of eros redeemed, the liturgy of the redemption of desire, of love as forgiveness. But what does it mean?

I have often been struck with the coincidence of the early beginning of school term with the Feast of the Holy Cross, and especially with one of its early and associated titles, namely, the Invention of the Holy Cross. It speaks so profoundly and yet so paradoxically to the nature of the intellectual enterprise. Inventio crucis.

Invention? Yes, but not in the sense of something fabricated out of our fevered imaginations. The feast derives from the celebrated visit of Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, to Jerusalem and her so-called discovery of the Holy Cross in the early fourth century as well as the exposition or “Exaltation” of the supposed true cross in the seventh century. Inventio does not suggest fabrication and invention so much as discovery and disclosure, in part our renewed discovery of our commitment to Christ in his Church.

In the Christian understanding of things, humility and sacrifice are de rigueur in the passionate search for understanding, the eros of intellectual life. The cross is the meeting place of all lovers.

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“Ye see with what large letters I write unto you with my own hand”

Paul’s words have a kind of directness to them, a way of catching our attention, even as he catches our attention yet again when he tells us that he bears in his body “the marks of the Lord Jesus”. Remarkable words, large words, words written, as it were, in the body of our humanity.

The Epistle reading complements wonderfully the Gospel reading. Jesus, too, catches our attention by way of strong words – “behold”, “consider”, “seek” – words which are nestled around his equally arresting and thrice repeated command, “be not anxious”. This, too, captures our attention.

Yet our anxiety gets in the way of our paying attention to anything. It describes much about our present condition. We are quite simply anxious about a multitude of things which we are utterly uncertain about what to do. What to do about the refugee crisis? What to do about the global economy? What to do about fire protection service in our rural communities? What to do … the list goes on. And because it does we are utterly paralysed by our anxieties.

What is the problem? What Paul and Jesus are saying and saying quite strongly is that the problem is with us. We are too much with ourselves. We are anxious precisely because we cannot face ourselves. But that seems utterly paradoxical. We are too much with ourselves and yet we cannot face ourselves? Precisely.

That is why we need the strong, strong words of Christ in the Gospel and the witness to such strong words in Paul’s large letters and his claim to bear in his own body “the marks of the Lord Jesus.” This Gospel is a powerful affirmation of the only real counter to our self-imposed anxieties. Why and How? Because it reminds us that this is God’s world and that we are his creatures, made in his image, who only live when we live for his glory – not, notice, for our own self-aggrandisement; not, notice, for our own security and comforts, isolated from the problems of the world, as if that is all out there, far away, and a problem for others who, shall we say? are just not like us. No, says St. Paul, “I bear” and so must we bear in our own bodies “the marks of the Lord Jesus.” Suffering not anxiety should be what defines us. Precisely what we don’t want to hear and yet these are the large letters, the strong words written for us to read even in the very body of our humanity, “the marks of the Lord Jesus.”

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