God forges community from the cross – Jn 19:25-27

Continuing my Old College series on the the Seven Sorrows of Mary with the Crucifixion.

There stood by the cross of Jesus his mother and his mother’s sister, Maria the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalen.

Then Jesus, seeing his mother and the disciple he loved standing by, said to his mother:

“Women, behold your son!”

Then, he said to the disciple:

“Behold your mother!”

And from that hour, the disciple received her as his own.

~~

Goudou Goudou: that’s the word in Haitian Creole for ‘earthquake.’  Prior to January 2010, there was no Haitian Creole word for earthquake.  Language was not the only thing that changed on that day that knocked Haiti down.  Haiti was not doing well before the goudou goudou and it’s not doing well now, but things have changed.  This summer I spent some time there and met some amazing groups of Haitians that, with outside support, have come together in the face of horrific disaster to work together to improve their community.  I met people that never realized they were a community, with deep responsibilities to each other, until disaster hit.  I would never want in any way to romanticize, sugar-coat or over-spiritualize what happened when the earth shook in Haiti.  But from that very real cross, God forged community.

God keeps doing that because God did that definitively on Calvary.  The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, but the world did not receive him.  The world crucified him.  When the hour came, Christ glorified his father by being hung on a cross.  The disciple did receive Jesus’ mother, from that hour, because of that hour, the hour of terrible glory that changed the world.   The disaster of the cross was the birthplace of the Church.

The disaster of the French Revolution would be the birthplace of many religious communities, including our own Congregation of Holy Cross.  Now, we continue Mary’s mission of standing by the cross.  I think of our religious in Haiti who do it as they rebuild not just buildings but a people’s hope.  I think of Fr. James Burasa in East Africa whose first Mass was the funeral of his murdered father.  I think of Fr. Eric and Br. Richard serving the homeless in Phoenix.  I think of every priest who’s sat by the bedside of someone dying, heard the confession of someone who’s fallen so far they can’t see a way up, counseled a student whose dreams are falling apart.  None of them could do that on their own.  We do that as a band of men, formed by God into an indivisible brotherhood.

Together, we stand by those crosses because there we still feel the after-shock of that fateful hour when Jesus directed us: “Behold.  Look at your neighbor; see your kin.”  From that cross and every cross we encounter, God stands ready to forge community.  If we let Him, we’ll stand there together as men with hope to bring.