STORY OF A MOTHER

REVELATION IS EVERYWHERE PRESENT

And whether or not our exact names are in the Bible, or mentioned in any of the books of the Old Testament, everyone of our names had already been written even before the beginning of the world, at a time when there is no time, in the eternal, non-beginning and non-ending, clasp of God. Because the mystery of creation is such that it continues to happen…in God’s realm, there is neither past, nor present, nor future.

But, to another topic…

In all of my travels to foreign countries, the first thing I seek is the road map to the nearest Catholic Church from wherever I am staying. And no matter how busy my work schedule may be, I will always find time to hear liturgical services, the Holy Mass, or, at the very least, make a visit.

I have also taken close notice of the different symbols used by other churches/religions to mark their own places of worship. And I remember that it was in India where the four largest religions coexist, where I saw all those religious symbols side by side.

The Hindu temples were everywhere — this religion predates Christianity by a thousand years or so. the oldest religion in the world, actually. There were even portable temples on mobile carts the way sidewalk vendors peddle their wares, with all those elaborate and ornate paintings and carvings of brightly painted images depicting the hundreds of deities/gods and goddesses that Hindus worship.

And then, in stark contrast, there loomed the large Muslim mosque (the typical onion dome) in the center of the city, containing no images at all, except for the soaring spire or minaret pointed skyward, toward the one God, Allah, who could never be reduced to a graven image.

Next, there was the Buddhist centers and small temples. They were sanctuaries of serenity and simplicity. Monks in saffron robes knelt in prayer and hummed chants and mantras, in the dark, quiet rooms of the interiors, suffused with the smell of incense. A gilded statue of Buddha dominated the room, his sly

smile expressing the Buddhist belief that the key to contentment lies in developing inner strength that allows one to surmount any suffering in life. There’s something quite Buddhist in my life. (I have also been to the Tibetan monasteries of the Himalayas, both in Katmandu and in Lhasa and the same simplicity and silence pervade the almost celestial ambiance).

And, then, there were the Protestant churches that did not believe in images. They most closely resembled the Muslim mosque in the structure of pillars and empty walls…although sometimes, there would be a Cross. In the Catholic Churches, there was a profusion of images and statues of as many saints as were presently venerated, images of Mother Mary, images of Jesus Christ, paintings of God the Father and the Holy Spirit as a dove or an eye inside a triangle…

But the predominant image was the CROSS.

Away from home on many occasions, and having been on the road for good two thirds of my life among different cultures and strange places, and still traveling, the Cross-acquired, for me, a new meaning.

Why do we use this image as a symbol for our faith? Was not the crucifixion of Jesus the most scandalous injustice ever done to any man, and to a God, at that?

We could have the image of the Resurrection…but why make the cross the centerpiece of our faith?

There is, of course, the simple fact that Jesus so commanded: “Do this in memory of me,” He said, clearly not wanting us to forget the Palm Sunday, the Last Supper, his suffering…And there lies the center of our faith: Jesus crucified formed the bridge between our human perception of a cruelly imperfect and indifferent world and our human need for God.

Our sense that God is present.

It was at the corner of that Bombay street, with pedestrians and bicyclists and farm animals swarming and smelling around me, as I stared at the Cross and all the other symbols of other religions, that I realized why the Cross had come to mean so much to Christians…The cross enacts for us the truth that there is hope when there is no hope.

The apostle Paul heard from God, “My God’s power is made perfect in weakness,” and then concluded about himself, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” That is why, he added, “I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.” He was pointing to a mystery, which goes several steps beyond the Buddhist way of coming to terms with suffering and hardship.

Paul spoke not of resignation, but of transformation. A crossing over…. To cross…. The very things that make us feel inadequate, the very things that plunder hope, these are what God uses to accomplish His work. For proof, look at the cross.

Because of the cross, I have hope. It is through the Servant’s wounds, that we are healed, said Isaiah — not his miracles. If God can wrest such triumph out of the jaws of apparent defeat, can draw strength from a moment of ultimate weakness, what might God do with the apparent failures and hardships of my own life?

Not even the murder of God’s own Son — can end the relationship between God and human beings. In the alchemy of redemption, that most villainous crime becomes our healing strength.

The fatally wounded Healer came back on Easter, the day that gives us a sneak preview of how all of history will look from the vantage point of eternity, when every scar, every hurt, every disappointment, will be seen in a different light.

Our faith begins where it might have seemed to end. Between the cross and the empty tomb hovers the promise of history: past, present, and future…”God weeps with us so that we may someday laugh with Him.”

What the apostles experienced in a small scale — three days, in grief, over one man who had died on a cross — we now live through on a cosmic scale. Human history grinds on, between the time of promise and fulfillment.

Can we trust that God can make something holy and beautiful and good out of a world that includes Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur, the inner-city slums and ghettoes, the jammed prison cells in the richest nation on earth? It’s Saturday on planet earth..will Sunday ever come?

That dark, Golgothan Friday can only be called “Good” because of what happened on Easter Sunday, a day which gives a tantalizing clue to the riddle of the universe. Easter opened a crack in a universe winding down toward entropy and decay, scaling the promise that someday God will enlarge the miracle of Easter to cosmic scale.

It is happening.

It is a good thing to remember that in this cosmic drama, we live out our days on Saturday, the in-between day with no name. On our tombstone, perhaps, we could have that word written: “Waiting.”

And so, celebrate the Cross…whenever you sign it over your face, and your body, remember the crossing over…of our humanity into the divine. That is the greatest truth of our faith, and it is so real.