Grant me to recognize in other men, Lord God, the radiance of your own face.
-- Teilhard de Chardin
The Other Side of the Coin
Sacrificing, re-prioritizing, putting others first – that’s one thing. But what about when others sacrifice for you? Accepting the sacrifice of others may be just as great a feat, if not greater, than making a sacrifice yourself. Because when someone sacrifices on your behalf, they are re-organizing their own priorities, shifting their own perspective – they are naming you as the “something else”, the something greater than themselves. And as self-centered as we all can be, there is still something deep down inside each one of us that resists the possibility that we could actually be worth it.
Think about the last time someone sacrificed for you in a significant way. Did you recognize what was happening – the shift that was taking place within that person – for you? Did you allow this to happen? Did you accept the gift? Were you a part of that persons’ transformation, a part of that person’s emergence from the cocoon of themselves?
Now let’s think about the sacrifice of the Cross. From the Cross, Jesus has named you as the “something else”, the something greater. You are the pearl of great price, worth selling all he had. This was his desire, his choice: “No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down” (Jn. 10:18).
This is the other side of the coin of sacrifice. From within the shelter of our own cocoons, we have the dangerous ability to empty the Cross of its power. We have the power to nullify its grace. Accepting the love, the grace, the power of this great sacrifice is an enormous spiritual feat. We can only do it from the foot of the Cross, with the recognition that we need him, and that he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Is "Sacrifice" Out of Style?
There are words that have gone out of style that we should bring back (my grandmother used to call hairdressers “beauty operators”). There are words that have gone out of style that we should leave alone (“slacks”). And then there are words that have gone out of style because we’ve forgotten what they mean (“bobbin”). There was a time when every woman knew what a bobbin was. Most of us don’t use them anymore – so most of us don’t really know what they are anymore. They are a memory, a fuzzy thought….
I would be overstating things to say that “sacrifice” has become for us a memory, a fuzzy thought. But its meaning – its real use – may be drifting. To sacrifice is not just to give up something. It is to give up something for the sake of something else. The “giving up” isn’t really the point. The “something else” is.
When we sacrifice – in a deliberate, meaningful and healthy way – we are re-organizing our priorities. We are re-ordering ourselves from within. We are recognizing what really matters. Our sacrifices – whether they are our Lenten observances, or small moments in our relationships, or gut-wrenching, life-changing acts of love – our sacrifices pay tribute to the “something else”, the “something” that is greater than ourselves. If we forget this, then the word does lose its meaning. It becomes about ourselves again – about what we’ve lost, what we’ve given up, and how that’s left us wounded. But when we willingly sacrifice for the sake of the other – then we have the privilege of being re-made ourselves, into something better than we were before. Emerging from a cocoon hurts. But the outcome is beautiful.
From the "Yikes" Category of Scripture #1
Scripture isn’t something that you would necessarily expect to make you say “Yikes!” But it happens. Sometimes it’s because a woman drives a tent spike through a man’s skull, or a powerful king starts acting like an animal and eating grass. Sometimes you say “yikes” because something rings so true that it hits you – as my mom would say – right between the eyes (hopefully not with the force of a sharpened tent peg). A few Gospel moments in the “yikes” category come to mind: Jesus calling Peter “Satan” – that was a “yikes” moment. A whole herd of swine dashing off a cliff – “Yikes!” Jesus asking Peter if he loved him – three times?! Triple yikes.
My Catholic Biblical School class recently studied the deuterocanonical book of Judith. If you haven’t read it, you should check it out. It is 100% guaranteed to make you say “Yikes.”
Obscure Scriptures #1
There are scriptures we are all familiar with, but don't you love it when you stumble across something obscure -- something rarely referenced or quoted -- that's simply amazing? Here's an example. It says something to us about the inevitability of God's presence, whose hands shelter us in life and death.
Whether I live or die, I shall not escape the hands of the Almighty (2 Maccabees 6:26).