Can We Touch Him?

Once a week I try to bring the kids to weekday Mass, but occasionally that plan can be interrupted if the church we go to has something else going on.  I knew that to be the case yesterday when we approached the church and, despite the lights being on inside, very few cars were in the parking lot.  As I unloaded my vehicle, a kind parishioner approached me and informed me that they were preparing for a funeral, and there would be no Mass.  Since we were already there, I asked if we might be able to sit in the sanctuary for a few minutes and pray with the Blessed Sacrament, which she said would be no problem.

As a few dedicated parishioners bustled about making preparations, the kids and I sat for a few moments in front of the tabernacle and prayed silently.  At one moment an older child of mine was struck by something large to the left of the altar.  As she made sense of what it was, word spread from sibling to sibling, and it didn't take long for all of them full of wonder and curiosity to be transfixed.  It was a life-sized crucifix, that is currently being restored to eventually be installed in the front of the church. "Can we go see it?" They asked me. And so, we did.

The moments that followed to me are such a profound gift. We see big, beautiful crucifixes in churches all the time, but always at a distance. It is so rare to be able to be so close to one, and for my children it was really evident how moving this was.  My ten-year-old daughter was mesmerized by the detail of the lines and shapes of the muscles and bone structure of Jesus, saying, "whoever did this is a real artist."  Asked later about what seeing this crucifix meant to her she replied, "it helped me to see that the Jesus we read about in the Gospels all the time was a real human being."  Another child remarked that seeing such a human presentation of Jesus in all his woundedness helped him understand what Jesus really did for him, and helped him to feel closer to Him. My youngest, just two years old, wanted to touch the nails in His hands and His feet. 

I have often encountered over the years the attitude that "Jesus should come down from the cross".  I don't know where this aversion to the visual of the crucified Christ comes from, but for me, this simple unplanned moment on a rainy Thursday morning, in a quiet church in my area, speaks more profoundly than anything else I have ever experienced of our need to see, up close and personal, the gift of Christ's sacrifice. Because more than anything else, what was communicated was love. This is the most powerful catechesis we can offer.  We don't need to frame or explain, or prepare anything - we just need to let Jesus be who He is, and to bring our kids to Him. They'll get it, perhaps better than we will.  We just need to let ourselves be loved by Him, understanding that this love finds its full meaning precisely in this sacrifice that He made for us.  And rather than running from any reminders of this sacrifice, we can - like my children - put ourselves at eye level to it.  Be drawn into it, study it, put our hands on it, and let it penetrate our hearts.  This is the moment where we know our true worth, and the depths of Christ's love for us.  And it is moving to the depths of our soul.