If You Want to Be a Saint, You Cannot be Safe Here

I keep thinking of the line from “The Chronicles of Narnia,” “He’s not a tame lion.”  Readers of the books know, Aslam is allegorical for Jesus –or rather, Lewis retold the story of Christ through the lens of myth.

Loving God likewise, is unsafe.  We will be called to go places we would not otherwise wander.

Lewis’ good friend Tolkien from the Fellowship wrote, “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off …”

Following Christ is stepping off onto the road, loving the not tame lion.  We get on the boat with Jesus, we should expect storms. It’s not safe.  It’s holy, and involves walking with the cross, to the cross, or being on the cross.

Online, I keep seeing people wondering, what can we do about the overreach practiced by various arms of our government.  The answer is found in the lives of the saints.  Saint Maximilian Kolbe offered himself in place of a father of two, to embrace a sentencing to starvation and death underground.   He went instead.  Like Christ, who went instead to the cross for our sins.  Saint Teresa Benedict of the Cross (Edith Stein) likewise could have avoided death, but went willingly with those on the train.   She wrote, “Those who remain silent are responsible.”  and “Our love of neighbour is the measure of our love of God. For Christians — and not only for them — no one is a ‘stranger’. The love of Christ knows no borders.”

This is a fraction of the reality of Christ’s love, it is a droplet in the ocean of His love for each of our souls.

So, we are our brother’s keeper, and always have been and those who remain silent, will find themselves saying, “Lord, Lord, when did we see you?” and the answer will be, we should have seen Him in the suffering.  We must come to see Christ in all who carry a cross.   All carry a cross, so we must see Christ in all.

My youngest is currently deep into “The Hunger Games,” the most famous quote of which is, “I volunteer as tribute.”  It is taking on her sister’s cross as her own.  We must likewise, take on the cross of our brothers and sisters.

How?

First, know what we are owed by this government:

First Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

So…when you see people from ICE or any other branch of the federal government attempting to “round up the usual suspects,”  be prepared.  Speak.  “I am here because I am exercising my rights as a US Citizen to petition my government to ask what they are doing. I am recording because as a member of the press. I am here assembling with my brothers and sisters in Christ. I am practicing my religion by being with them.

Consider that I am here in fraternal correction of your soul, asking you to consider the cost of now, an eternity of regret, suffering and loss.”  and to tell them to stop.

With the sweeping of the homeless, we must also stand against this broad whisking away of people.  They’ve been forgotten enough –to be out of sight, would render them still moreso.   Look at the wealth of your home, and surrender something on their behalf, volunteer with the pantry or the shelters.  At the very least, stand against them being swept away by a government whose primary solution these days to all problems, is the threat of imprissonment.