Chapter 41: Passage

Imagine if you could perceive just one particle's worth of the love and joy that is God, knowing that you are only slightly scratching the surface of all that lies beyond (and simultaneously includes) your perceptions...

Just as unfathomable, imagine perceiving one particle of Christ's suffering as is evidenced on the Shroud and thereby comprehending the totality of suffering of mankind.

Each particle, of love (and of suffering), is energetically animated. Though we can intellectually, theoretically, and cognitively perceive the love and joy of God and, likewise, the suffering of Christ, on the energetic level we fall immeasurably short. Not our fault though, as we are limited by design (and simultaneously unlimited).

Is human suffering the primary portal to God's love? An opening to all encompassing divinity?

Our earthly, flat perceptions and our pain and suffering become the residue, the shadow that resides inside, the sprite clinging to its transparency.

Even if you could scratch that surface and know a love and joy so infinitesimal, one that shines brighter and stronger than seven suns, would you opt to release into it and leave your human life behind? Or would you take on a new understanding and appreciation for the worth of human existence?

What makes us cling to sorrowful human life when bliss awaits us?

Why does certain death, one that promises an end to suffering, inspire us to re-evaluate life's treasure trove?

As we catch that glimpse of eternal, omniscient joy, why do we back step into the monotony of day to day activities and concerns? Why don't we yearn forward?

There is no human fear that can come close to one particle of God's infinite love. So why do we fear and shun this love?

When someone dies or we look at old photographs of those from earlier times, we feel a drift of panic because we know at some point we too will not be included among the living. It's similar to the feeling of being left out as a child, when everyone else got to play outside and you had to stay inside.

When I was in Catholic grade school, one of the nuns read us a story about a planet where the sun would only shine one day a year. Every other day was gray and drenched in steady rains. The little girl at the center of the story was rapt with excitement for this upcoming day. Sure enough, the night before bullies locked her in a pitch black closet and she missed the entire day of light.

I remember feeling deep agony over the cruelty of those other children and a sorrowful disappointment that this girl missed the light. I don't remember how the sister interpreted the story, but I never forgot it.

I think it's about a lot more than cruelty. I think it's about hopes dashed and expectations vanquished...or how we let the darkness of human life overcome us and only value the light.

Human life is, perhaps, God's gift of passage, His opening, our way in. Without it we have no entry into His light.

Chapter 40: Trusting Peace

Lord, your peace holds all suffering

Faith is, presumably, based on trust. We can't fully have faith without trust. So then how is it that we waver, even for a moment, in trusting a man who sacrificed His life for our salvation? A man who suffered and endured relentless torture and pure evil on our behalf?

Is our doubt connected to our free will? Do we feel we are jeopardizing our free will when we release our lives and surrender our will to the will of God? When we offer up what is in our control, do we feel we have been undermined or duped? Is that why it is so hard for us to trust?

Is our doubt in unequivocal trust merely our free will exposing its deepest fear? Or is trust the only true and pure expression of free will?

Christ suffering, Christ dying – these were choices based on trust. It is wildly ironic that we marvel at His trust but doubt our own.

And still, in moments of our most dire suffering (individual or collective) we are surrounded, embraced, absorbed, folded into the gift of perfect peace. .. a gift that Christ earned for us through using His free will to surrender doubt and simply trust.

It is no wonder that some doubt that the image on the Sindone is an instrument of the trust Christ shrouds us with, enfolding us into His forever peace.