This is a weird time of year as a Catholic! It seems that it was only a handful of weeks ago that we were preparing to receive Jesus as a baby. When I see Jesus as a baby I can’t help but think of my own precious babies. There are times when I get lost looking intently on their faces and into their eyes, all the while falling more deeply in love! The mere thought of pain or suffering coming to that sweet child seems to trigger an automatic door that slams shut at the very mention of such a thing. It’s a place no one should ever need to imagine. Mary, as a mother, was she spared the understanding of what her baby would one day do?
It was not so long ago we were thinking about Jesus, not on the cross, not the one who bears the sins of the world and certainly not as the one who was bloodied and sacrificed on the cross. No! It was not so long ago we were thinking of Jesus as a sweet, squishy newborn infant. It was not so long ago that he was the one who would take His place in an empty stable bed that we had been anxiously awaiting all of Advent to fill. The Christ child, the King of the world, born as the long awaited One, the One all of humanity needed and was looking for, the One who would save us all- and still, the one who was completely reliant on his mother and father. It’s Jesus as a child, a baby, the one who needed to be cared for- to be held in Mary’s arms and loved that I want to hold onto. But in this time of year the weeks move quickly and before too long the dust of ashes will grace our faces and we will again prepare for Jesus to suffer and save us all. In this time of the year I wish to slow down time and hold onto my December Jesus as if I could protect Him from the agony that should befall Him.
Now, if you’d allow me, I have a story to share and I promise this will come together in the end.
As a Catholic mother, I experienced a moment of sheer reward- a moment where I realized that all that we teach isn’t being lost on deaf ears! We had a cross on our mantle. It was a pretty cross and generally I am not one for pretty crosses. Crosses aren’t meant to be pretty- they’re meant to bring us to know Jesus and in my experience, that’s when it gets messy. But alas, I had a weak moment in Home Goods and found myself with a pretty wooden cross. Okay, so back to that moment of reward- I was in the kitchen hastily preparing for Christmas when the older boys came in and saw that I was trying to repair the cross. (Why was I having to repair a cross? I don’t know what happens in your house, but in our house we sometimes have brooms that ‘mysteriously’ fly through the air and make things fall off the mantle- like my pretty cross. Obviously there are usually no witnesses to these types of events and they generally ‘just happen’). Anyways, in Giorgio’s sweet voice he said ‘Jesus arm broken. Jesus missing’. In that moment, I gave up my frustration of having to glue my pretty cross back together and was instead rewarded with the observation of my three year old. He noticed that this cross, unlike the other crosses in our home, was missing the body of Jesus. As Mariano looked at the cross he said, ‘that is where Jesus lives!’ Perhaps it was because I was in the throws of Christmas crafting with red berries and pine branches, that I thought to myself ‘but not in December. In December Jesus lives in a manager and in the arms of Mary’. In December, the contrast of Jesus hanging on a cross, covered in blood and suffering for us simply seems too harsh in light of that same Jesus coming as an infant baby King! But in February that is the Jesus we prepare for; that is the Jesus we look upon and reflect on.
Last week Mariano was closely examining the San Damiano cross that hangs in my kitchen, when he noticed the blood dripping from the nails in Jesus’ feet. Mariano questioned the nails and why they were there, and who put them there; he was concerned how they must have hurt Jesus and wanted to know how nails could hold him to the cross; was it the nails that made him die; why did Jesus die? From my child who perpetually asks why, his simple observation of the blood dripping from Jesus’ feet quickly reached the ceiling of my limited knowledge of theology. We covered things like a Triune God, the medical implications of dying by way of crucifixion, and what happens to the body and soul at death. I very nearly phoned a friend with a theology & catechesis degree to help me manage these questions from my FOUR year old. As I was talking about Jesus dying on the cross I had a moment that I really needed! I needed to be reminded of the inconvenient truth, the harsh reality of the cross and why Jesus died. It always comes back to the cross. It’s at the cross that we meet Jesus and it’s at the cross where we can truly understand his love for us; where we can truly understand that Love requires Sacrifice. Maybe it’s that pain that makes me retreat from the thought of my Jesus, the baby Jesus asleep in Mary’s arms, enduring such agony and wishing that no mother should have to consider that end. Maybe it was when I explained that Jesus died for our sins so that we could live with him forever in Heaven; maybe it was having to say to my four year old that ‘we all make choices that break the heart of Jesus’ that allowed me to realize that I need this Lent. Looking at sin and the things in my life that break the heart of Jesus are how we know who he really is. I love my December Jesus but I must let go of the imagine of the Christ child, at least for now so that I can again fall in love with the heart of Jesus and the heart of The Father.
So here we are only days before the commencement of Lent, preparing to embrace the suffering of Jesus as a way to remember His Love for us. As I head into these 40 days it is an opportunity to fall more deeply and madly in love with the One who first loved me, who first loved my husband and children and family; the One who first loved us all despite what we do that breaks His heart. I ask that you pray for me as I embark on these days of waiting and I will pray for you. Let us not forget, just as we longed for the Christ child to take his place in a shoddy manager bed, He must also take his place on the cross and there is another truly beautiful image of Jesus waiting for us all on the other side of these 40 days.
Peace, Lauren
La Dolce Vita 