Mysticism, Cheer and Humanity
The Church remembers St. Francis receiving his stigmata today so it is fitting that our essay would feature a quote from GK Chesterton’s 1923 biography of the popular Saint.
It did not make him dismal or dehumanised; for it was the whole meaning of his message that such mysticism makes a man cheerful and humane.
GK Chesterton
Today’s gospel reminds me of my wife, Paulie. It’s the familiar passage where a woman washes the feet of Jesus with her tears and Jesus comments, “Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much.”
Paulie has suffered through considerable heartache in the past decade. In addition to the collapse of the world all us boomers were raised to understand she charted a path through ovarian cancer, chemotherapy, a head on car crash that left me uninjured as the driver but introduced a slow deterioration of strength and control over the right side of her body. Through it all her mystical relationship with Jesus … fueled by daily Bible reading and fellowship with older women in the church of her youth … has only increased the strength of her love for me, her family and her neighbors.
While she hasn’t been given the gift of a stigmata by Jesus she is experiencing this dramatic suffering likely to persist until death. Christ’s example does more than point us in a direction. Through the Church’s liturgy we are provided with daily food that sustains us in suffering. The daily Eucharist has become my source of strength and wisdom as I age into this collapsing and confusing world we all inhabit.
My wife is living daily proof to me that it is possible to discover mystical strength in the Bible and religion without the Church’s liturgy. I couldn’t do it. I’m not willful enough to go it alone with a small local “church” and my Bible.
A unified Church topped by Peter’s seat occupied by a human ordained to the task of Pope makes sense to me. For decades I lived outside the benefit of singular authority and hierarchy in religion. Christianity makes no sense to me without a unified Church.
Where I’m weak is in bearing my own suffering.
I’ll assist at the Mass in just under an hour praying for a faith that is more like my wife’s in important ways — cheerful and humane.
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