Our Veiled Crosses and The Mother Hen
What’s the longest distance you’ve been separated from your phone?
For me it’s 70 miles.
On Saturday I went on one of my monthly retreats and in the haste of packing and getting ready in the morning, I typically end up leaving something behind only to realize after I get to the retreat house in New Jersey. Usually it’s something small, pajamas or a phone charger. This time, it was my phone, something which I like most people have become so dependent on. I can’t tell you how many times I reached into my pocket looking for my phone only to remember it wasn't there. Without my phone I wasn't able to bury myself in the digital shield of checking the time, my messages or endlessly scrolling on Instagram or Facebook.
Phones make our lives so comfortable. We take it for granted that anything we could ever want to know, what to eat, want to have is at our fingertips. One Google search away, one Uber Eats away, one Amazon purchase away. With that there shouldn't be anything to desire, we shouldn't be lonely, we shouldn't be depressed, yet we seem to be more lonely, depressed and discontent than ever. With or without our phones we hunger for greater things.
On Sunday, I came back from my retreat, found my phone exactly where I left it and things went on as normal. Afterwards I met up with a good friend of mine who came down from Boston to visit New York. I showed him around the city and we ended up going to St. Thomas Episcopal Church on 5th Ave for their famous choral Evensong. Traditionally, on 5th Sunday of Lent, all of the crosses in a church would be veiled in violet cloth to symbolize the somber nature of the last stretch of Lent, only to be unveiled on Good Friday. Though most catholics have since abandoned the custom many Episcopalians have kept it and at the head of the procession was a cross draped in purple cloth.
Before the Magnificat the choir sang my favorite hymn the Vexilla Regis. The chant has a mysterious quality, the Irish novelist James Joyce described it as being both mournful and majestic, distressing yet consoling. For me it has always embodied the paradox and mystery of the cross as I wrote about in my last post as being both disturbing and beautiful. While listening to this hauntingly beautiful hymn gazing up at the cross wrapped in violet cloth the 4th verse struck me
O Tree of beauty, Tree of light,
O Tree with royal purple dight,
Elect on whose triumphal breast
Those holy limbs should find their rest!
It struck me looking up at that cross with purple dight. The cross isn't covered because of somber mourning but it is hidden for its glory and beauty. Like a Christmas present wrapped in golden foil, it draws our attention to it even more than it would if we left unveiled. We know exactly what's under the veil but the anticipation of waiting for the cross to be revealed invites us to consider in a new light what the cross means to us.
It's only when I was left without my phone that I considered what my phone meant to me and perhaps through hiding the cross in these last couple weeks of Lent that we can reflect on what the ultimate symbol of Christ's love means to us. As I have said before we have become numb to the beauty, the wonder and mystery which the cross should fill us and inspire us with and it is the cross, the ultimate sign of humanity's salvation which our faith should rest on. Despite how reliant I am on my phone, I will never be able to dial God with it, nor will I be able to order a one way ticket to heaven. Without the cross we are nothing because without the cross there is no redemption.
There's a line in the Vexilla Regis which I especially reflect on often. Hail O Cross our only hope! Last year the general chapter of the redemptorists convened and they chose the theme for the congregation to focus on in particular, “Missionaries of Hope in the Footsteps of the Redeemer ''. I find that this phrase grounds me in moments of difficulty, Christ sanctified suffering, he entered into this wounded world so that our burdens are no longer stumbling blocks to our salvation but if we allow them to draw us into an intimate unity with the suffering Christ. We can be fain the grace and courage we need to endure them.
So often we are afraid to unveil our own crosses, the weaknesses we carry in the secret of our hearts, wounds which we leave to fester. Sometimes we are even too scared to bring them up to ourselves, instead we suppress them and put on a mask of perfection. One of the most powerful moments of the liturgical year for me is when the cross is unveiled on Good Friday, the celebrant slowly takes the purple cloth off of the crucifix until the suffering Christ is revealed in all his disturbing beauty. Our Lord who was once beautiful, now disfigured by torture and suffering, hanging on the tree of torture. In Roman times anyone passing the cross would look away in terror, they would ignore the screams of excruciating pain and sighs of exhaustion. Yet we go up and kiss the cross as if it were a precious gift. As I approach the cross, I think to myself, how often do I ignore my own weaknesses and bury myself in distractions, how often do I leave my cross veiled from Christ, from others, from myself?
In this wounded world there are so many who are hopeless and in despair. We are surrounded by people who are abandoned by society and sometimes we treat them as if they don't exist. We bury ourselves in our phones on the subway and on the train, wherever we go and especially when we feel uncomfortable. Our phones, which can be great tools of communication, can act more as a shield to distract us from both the beauty of this world and the blind us to its pain and suffering. It's so much easier to scroll, to swipe and to tap.
Before we left our retreat to go back to the Bronx, we prayed Morning Prayer, overlooking the sunrise on the Jersey Shore. As we were praying the Benedicite, I looked out on the vast expanse of the ocean shimmering with the radiance of the sun, the rolling clouds and crashing waves, the birds diving into the water to catch fish, the people out on the beach for an early morning walk and the breeze blowing the beachgrass. Overlooking all of this was a giant crucifix. I thought of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem, God's Grandeur. The poem begins by praising the beauty of God's creation and then laments at man's constant destruction and ambivalence to both God and the world He has made. However, it ends so beautifully with this line.
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Christ compares himself to a mother hen who desires to gather her brood under her wings. This image of Christ as a Mother Hen is strange and somewhat obscure but I find it to be one of the most beautiful. I gazed out onto that crucifix and thought of the hen stretching her wings to protect her chicks as Christ stretched out his arms on the cross. He allowed himself to be revealed in complete vulnerability, like a hen protecting her brood, so that we might embrace him by following his example, to unveil ourselves to him and find something which only God can give, eternal joy and rest.
