“Why are you troubled?
And why do questions arise in your hearts?
Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.
Touch me and see,
because a ghost does not have flesh and bones
as you can see I have.”
Dear Jesus, you come to us,
those redeemed by your Blood,
in the midst of our loneliness and fear,
drawing near and extending your hands,
the words “Peace be with you” on your lips.
But this presence, this presence!
We knew you to be crucified,
afflicted, and rejected,
without beauty, nor anything to draw our eyes.
How is it that now you come to us,
you who were buried in the tomb?
You come in beauty,
a beauty we glimpsed in your body,
in your words and actions and gestures
as you walked with us in the flesh.
But how is it that you come to us now,
the same as then, yet different?
For you bear in those extended hands
the marks of your Passion,
and in those feet the marks of the nails…
and through this wounded openness
the divine light shines with glory.
You are the same One who suffered,
who entered into our pain and death,
and yet now you have broken it asunder
and come to us in the fullness of life…
a life that is both wholly human,
and yet also radiantly divine.
It is as if in you, through your gift of self,
a new dimension of reality has been opened.
And we struggle to understand this newness,
just as a two-dimensional figure,
encountering a sphere passing through
its flat and formless world,
struggles to grasp and understand.
But you offer your flesh to us,
this flesh that bears the same dimensions as our own,
and yet is also utterly open to the deeper mystery,
the dimension of participation in divine life.
Yes, through your Paschal Mystery, Jesus,
you have become totally open;
the Open One, we could call you…
for in that cruciformity of the Passion,
your arms extended, your Heart pierced open,
you reached out to embrace heaven and earth,
and made your Heart, your being,
a haven for every heart within creation.
Yes, you descended to the lowest
without leaving behind the highest
(the loving bosom of the Father!),
but rather carrying light into the darkness
so as to take us up and carry us,
in yourself, from darkness into light.
And now the darkness is passing away
and the true light is already shining,
though this newness takes up our flesh, our humanity,
transfigured in the newness of God.
In the very flesh that we touch,
in the Body and Blood that we consume,
we encounter the divinity that is yours
in the communion of the Trinity’s life,
with the Father and the Spirit of your love.
We are taken up into your own cruciformity,
the radical openness of heart and life…
to letting ourselves be loved, and loving,
to abiding in the vulnerability of relationship.
And in this new dimension of love,
this dimension of the Father’s all-enfolding Gift,
we realize that the cruciform gesture,
this mystery of your Cross implanted in our life,
is enveloped in a greater Mystery
in which alone, alone all finds its place:
the Circle of Divine Love
in which all things are sheltered
and gently, gently held.