God’s Faithfulness Made Present

Dear Friend,

At the Mission Church, as at all Catholic churches, a given weekend – or even a single day in some locations - can include the celebration of a wedding within hours of a funeral. The great scripture scholar, Ellen F. Davis, who preached at a wedding some years ago in Los Angeles points to a text from the Song of Songs, “Love is strong as death…” and asks her listeners to consider that “love may be more like death than it is death’s polar opposite (as we generally think).” She continues, “love teaches us to give ourselves wholly and freely,” so that “death does not defeat what love has built but rather completes it.” 

This week as we celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, another great scholar, Mary McGlone, invites us to see the way that this feast brings together the Paschal Triduum and Christmas. Jesus Christ comes to us in the flesh, the fallible, tender, vulnerable flesh of a child. This weekend’s second reading sings of Jesus’s willingness to humble himself, declaring that in his name salvation is achieved as heaven and earth are joined in his flesh, a loving union which is completed on the Cross. 

It's no wonder that the first “sign” Jesus offers his followers in John’s Gospel is presented at a wedding. A couple joined together in this way becomes a sign of God’s love for this broken world, just as Moses held up a life-giving sign for his people in the desert. God’s faithfulness is made present. For St. Francis the great signs of the cross and crib (i.e. manger) shape what we might call the sacred drama we are asked to enter boldly each time we come to Eucharist. It’s our sanctified life story shared in the Body of Christ.

Gratefully,

Father Dan ofm