Christ is Coming to Heal the World

It has not been a good weekend.

Rosie came down with a fever and the worst case of conjunctivitis I’ve ever seen. I used to get sties on my eyes, growing up, but this was a thousand times worse than that. Her eyes were swollen shut and gummed with mucus; I had to wash her eyelids with warm water before they could open. And then the real torment began: the doctor prescribed eye drops.

Have you ever tried to give an anxious six-year-old with a fever and conjunctivitis a dose of eye drops?

She struggled for twenty minutes and then screamed in agony when I finally got the drops in. I held her while she screamed for ten minutes more, sobbing “Mama” over and over again, screaming for a washcloth I couldn’t let her have for at least five minutes while the drops settled.

“Jesus is here with you,” I said at one point.

“HE’S PUNISHING ME!” screamed a tormented Rose.

I snuggled her closer. “No, no, I promise He’s not. He’s not. Jesus never punishes people with sickness or painful medicine. He’s suffering with you. He’s making you well. He’s coming back to heal the world.”

“Is he coming back in a flying saucer?” she asked, momentarily distracted from her stinging eyes.

I tried to explain, but I don’t know how much got through. I am not a theologian, just a poet.

By Saturday night, I was exhausted– either flared up the way stress flares up my fibromyalgia or coming down with the beginning of Rose’s sickness, I still can’t tell which. I’ll know in a few days if I run a fever or my eyes swell shut. I was drained emotionally and there was no consolation available.

Sunday morning I leaned heavily on my cane as I went to church.

I still don’t have any way to get to my beloved Eastern Catholic Divine Liturgy. We have hope of getting a car, perhaps in the fall, but for now there’s nothing.

I was first drawn to the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom because of how joyful it is. It’s sublimely joyful. Everything that happens in an Eastern church is somehow impossibly joyful, more so the silliest and most over the top Charismatic praise and worship session– and yet it’s solemn and mysterious, timeless, ancient; more so than the loveliest and most formal Latin Extraordinary Form High Mass. I love Latin Mass. I love the Ordinary Form too. I just love the Eastern Divine Liturgy most of all.

Besides, the Divine Liturgy is in vernacular, so I can let the words of the chants wash over me and learn some theology. I can’t do the same with Latin. I’m not a Latin scholar. I am no theologian either, just a poet, and poetry teaches me.

But I wasn’t going to a Latin High Mass or an Eastern Divine Liturgy on this particular day. I was going to the nearest church, to a Latin Extraordinary Form Low Mass. There’s no music there, just whispers– the priest whispers prayers for an hour and a half, except when he preaches the homily, and the congregation doesn’t sing or chant; they just mutter “Domine non sum dignus,” “Lord, I am not worthy,” quietly at certain points, and very little else. I muttered along with them as best I could. I felt unworthy in the extreme, and I am.

The Low Mass is the Mass– the Liturgy, the Eucharist, and so it’s everything. Aesthetically speaking, it is the hardest liturgy for me in terms of being able to feel as if I’m praying. One doesn’t have to feel a certain way to pray, of course. One only has to intend to pray. But the prayer where I intend but can’t feel is the hardest kind, to me.

I hand nothing to listen to, so I started making poetry.

Here is Christ. Here is all of Christ. Here is Christ both God and Man. Here is Christ’s Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. Here is Christ the zygote, the embryo, the fetus, the infant, the toddler, the child, the young man. Here is Christ the preacher, Christ the healer, Christ the consoler, Christ the restorer. Here is Christ mocked, stripped, beaten, abused, tortured to death. Here is Christ descended into hell. Here is Christ risen, Christ ascended to the Father. Here is Christ coming again to heal the world.

There is no time here, because this is Heaven come down to Earth and there is no time in Heaven. I am standing at Calvary at the foot of the Cross. And there is more– I am baptized; I am a member of the Body of Christ. This means I am not only at the foot of the Cross but on it, in Christ. And with me is everything– my whole life, and that of every person in the Body of Christ. Here is my joy and suffering offered eternally in the Passion of Christ, and here is the joy and suffering of everyone who is in Christ. Here is Rosie, her eyes cemented shut with conjunctivitis, screaming as the drops are applied. Here is Mommy, wrecked with exhaustion, trying to comfort her. Here is the dryness and the longing for the joy I cannot have, not yet. Here is the terrible cry that God must be punishing us, or that He might not see– eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani. Here is Christ suffering with us, making us well, coming again to heal the world.

Here am I, exhausted, drained, lonely, kneeling at the rail, receiving what seems for all the world to be a low-gluten Host, a piece of dry white bread with no flavoring, but isn’t. I am receiving the entire Mystery, everything that Christ is, all of Christ, Body, Blood, Soul, Divinity, salvation, power and glory; Bethlehem, Calvary, and Heaven; on my tongue and into my body. I am at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, and I am the bride.

I didn’t exactly feel better as I left the church, but I had been with Christ, and that was everything.

The prayer where I intend but can’t feel is the hardest kind, but it’s a good prayer. Or so it seems to me. I am not a theologian.

(image via Pixabay)