A surgeon
named Shawn from Nebraska, who participated in the marathon in Boston, had crossed the
finish line seconds before the first bomb exploded. He said, “When the bombs started to explode,
I instinctively ran away from them, but then I stopped and turned back because
I remembered who I am and ran to the first aid tents to care for the wounded.”
His statement is a
summary of the Christian way of life: the passage from the darkness of being
controlled by our instinctual passions to the light of living in Truth and Love. I don't know if he is a Christian, perhaps he doesn't know it either.
Yet, there is no one who acts outside the redemption won for us all by
Jesus Christ. “I remembered who I am.” Sure, Shawn was talking about the fact that
he is a doctor, but on a deeper level he was talking about the fact of his
shared humanity: all of us redeemed by
the blood of Jesus.
We are made in the image
and likeness of God, and all of us here in this
Church have been baptized into Christ and put on Christ. Baptism is our incorporation into a real
body, the body of which the exalted Christ is the Head. This is the Church, the Body of Christ. When we remember who we are, created and
re-created in Christ the perfect Image of God, we put on the mind and heart of
Jesus Christ who is seated at God's right hand by virtue of the mystery of the
Ascension that we are celebrating. When
we remember who we are, we ascend with Christ even as we descend in reaching
down to help a fallen brother or sister.
Father Luke consults with Brother Francis before Mass in this photograph by Brother Brian.
Father Luke consults with Brother Francis before Mass in this photograph by Brother Brian.
