“Remove Your Sandals”

What’s it like to lead prayers before a room of unfamiliar people these days at, say, a wake service? I can only speak for myself, but unsettling is one way I might describe it. Eyes seem to be saying, “We didn’t ask for you.” As a priest, I try to bring comfort to the relatives of the deceased, but am often more suffered than received, like an unwelcome interruption, especially by young adults.

Perhaps to those who think their loved ones to have already, and indeed immediately, taken their place among the Blessed in heaven, the priest represents only the risk of an upset. How out of place seem words about God’s mercy when remembering someone’s “perfect” grandmother. Nor does gentleness always have the desired effect. Not seldom, I see in the eyes of the grandchildren disdain of my trying politely to reference personal anecdotes regarding grandma’s faith. “Don’t touch it, Father. Let it be what we want it to be, and how we choose to remember it.”

It’s certainly tempting to stop trying; many guys do. But that would be to deny the desire in my heart to be a saint, which, although it means sometimes being rejected, also carries with it the possibility of helping others to become saints too, even those who scoff now. And it’s interesting: it’s a desire that’s so common to us all that even the most unchurched grandchildren find some comfort in remembering their grandparent’s devotion to some saint. Even the hardest faces at the wake service soften at the mention of grandma’s favorite saint.

This past week, for example, we celebrated two great men who share enormous popularity as two of the world’s most beloved Saints, but who have an even greater Man in common. Worthy as Saint Patrick is to be hailed a Saint, escaping slavery in Ireland then returning as a bishop to transform that island, he was, and is still, subject to Christ. And even Saint Joseph, entrusted with the privilege of teaching God how to pray, and to whom the Son of God was obedient for a time, is nevertheless now, and evermore, subject to the authority of his Divine Son.

All of the saints are worthy of praise, and yet all of them bow to the Eternal Mystery of God-made-present in Jesus of Nazareth, Who sends His priests to speak in His name at wake services. The Word that spoke to Moses from the burning bush, “Remove your sandals,” is the same Eternal Word Who came to John the Baptist in the flesh, “whose sandals [he] was not worthy to untie.” Even Moses. Even John the Baptist. History’s greatest men are only great insofar as they have Christ in common.

So remove the sandals of your polytheism and pharaoh-worship as you approach God. Come to Him as from your mother’s womb, naked and poor. Should anything in your heart resist the peace He offers, come before Him still. Love Him, and He will have you sit at table, and will proceed to wait on you. He will even remove your sandals, wash your feet, and make you to be great, even as He is great. For while no servant is greater than his master, once well formed every disciple can become like his master.

This is the truth of our Faith, and the truth about all of our grandmothers as well. No one becomes great without Christ, not one of us. Apart from Him, there is nothing. Just as in Adam we all experience sin and death, so through Christ comes the forgiveness of sins and new life.

But we, too, often forget this. We fall into thinking of Christianity in the same way as young adults these days, as if it were about trying our hardest to imitate the impossible example of Christ, despairing of our inequity, instead of allowing Him to accomplish holiness in us. We exhaust ourselves, trying to make ourselves like Him, instead of simply falling in love with Him, and being changed by Him. But to fall in love with Him will mean loving the Crucified One, and so, at times, looking like fools - which will have been worth it - for the sake of the good thieves at the wake services. +