The Whole Picture
The Presbyterian minister in town called here last week on behalf of one of his parishioners. “Father, this woman’s husband is Catholic, and hasn’t been to Church in decades,” he told me. “He’s dying and in need of the Sacraments. Will someone from your parish go?”
How could we not?
When I walked into his living room that late afternoon, the wife met me at the door, thanking me for coming and wanting to fill me in on the condition that brought her husband to this point in the journey. Simply put, he ran into the World Trade Center Towers on September 11 in order to save lives, and spent days at Ground Zero. His lungs and body are racked with evidence of that.
“I repeatedly begged him not to go, and couldn’t fathom why he did.”
That’s all she said before we walked together to his hospice bed.
I was now standing before a man who gave his life for the many. He wasn’t the first to do so.
“God forbid that such a thing should happen to you,” said Peter as his Rabbi and Friend – the one of whom he just called the Christ (last week’s Gospel) – told his closest disciples that he was going to suffer and die at the hands of others.
It’s understandable. God forbid that someone’s life is taken in such a brutal, horrible fashion. Peter couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that this would happen to Jesus. How could the Christ allow himself to be killed? More importantly, perhaps: why?
The Savior of the world – from Peter’s perspective – wasn’t saving much of anything by heading to Calvary. You can’t save anyone if you’re dead, after all.
“God forbid, Lord.”
Funny how doubt and fear works on us, isn’t it -- and sometimes through the ones who are closest to us. No wonder Jesus called Peter out: “You aren’t thinking as God thinks.”
If we were honest, we very rarely do. The reasons are many: sinfulness; fear; selfishness; a desire to cling to the ones we love. We can’t blame Peter for wanting to keep Jesus safe -- not really.
And yet, sometimes the love we have for another doesn’t see the entire picture. Sometimes we just can’t see or understand how God is at work in their lives or ours, nor can we fathom how He can bring good from pain and tragedy.
Thinking back to that morning of September 11, 2001, the wife who watched her police officer husband rush into Manhattan couldn’t then see or understand why he went. It wasn’t his jurisdiction, after all. Not his responsibility to save them.
But for this man, how could he not go? His heart told him that others were in need of saving, and so he ran into those buildings that morning, heedless of the smoke and fire and chaos. He sacrificed his own well-being in order to rescue others.
Now, he lay dying as a result of his willingness to enter the darkness created by hate.
That is, after all, what true love always does: enter the darkness of suffering and hate in order to bring forth new life and hope. Love picks up the cross and is willing to face Calvary, no matter how it comes – even when it doesn’t see or know the outcome.
That’s a hard statement to embrace, and even harder to live. The Lord knows this – which is why He went there first on behalf of all of us.
Because He went, He gives us the strength to go to Calvary all the time: Parents who refuse to leave a hospital room as a child undergoes countless cancer treatments. The best friend who drives the other to AA meetings every morning and waits for them to finish. The teacher who isn’t afraid to call DHS on a student showing signs of trouble at home. All enter the unknown world of another’s cross -- unsure of the outcome – and says “I’ll stay.”
God went to the Cross and says to us – “I’ll stay” – so that we know we aren’t alone as we empty ourselves for another. God says “I’ll stay” when we offer to sacrifice out of true love, even when the world – like Peter – doesn’t understand or see the good that God is bringing about.
God will always bring good. Always.
A few days ago, a Washington D.C. high school came to a retreat center nearby for a few days of prayer as the students began their final year. One young man – on his way to Howard University after graduation – shared with me a heavy cross he had been carrying for a number of years now: two very sick parents; a lack of concentration at school; and a football-ending knee injury.
“I was so angry at God … and life in general,” he shared with me. “Football was the only thing I had, and even that was taken from me. I stopped praying … I started to shut down.”
But then this – “I realized after a lot of wrestling within myself that my injury gave me more time with my parents,” he said. “I was able to care for them, which I wouldn’t have done if I stayed with the team. Funny, isn’t it? This whole mess made me less self-centered .”
I then asked gently about his relationship with the Lord and with his faith. He was honest: “It’s still not great, but I know I need him. I know He’s not giving up on me.”
Echoing Jeremiah in our first reading: “I say I will not mention [God], but then it becomes like a fire burning in my heart …”
The restless and burning heart for Christ is always with us – and it seems to be quenched only when we meet Him at the Cross. When we let Him in … when we stay with another in theirs … it is then that we start seeing and loving as God does. It is then that the darkness of evil and hate and selfishness is replaced by true, lay-down-your-life love.
I don’t know if the wife of the Long Island police officer ever made peace with her husband’s decision to enter the World Trade Center 22 years ago. But it was clear that he went that day out of love and duty; he went that day to enter the Cross of others who needed a heart filled with light to enter the darkness of hate. He went because love sacrifices.
And isn’t it beautiful that at the end of the man’s journey here this side of heaven, the very same Christ came to his side, no matter how long he had been away from Him, and said: “You are loved and forgiven. Welcome Home, My good servant.”