You
may have noticed that tonight we omitted Psalm 42 in the prayers at the foot of
the Altar, with its familiar “O send out thy light and thy truth that they may
lead me and bring me unto thy holy hill and to thy dwelling,” only to hear this
verse as the introit of the Mass. As
with most of these things, there is a message there.
Today
we enter Passiontide and, in the breviary, the hymns of the first part of Lent give
way to new pieces focused upon the mystery of the cross. The hymn of the vespers, written 1400 years
ago, proclaims, “The royal banners forward go.
The cross shines forth in mystic glow.”
In the epistle and in the preface, we hear of the battle of two
trees: The Tree of the Knowledge of Good
and Evil, which Satan used to trick Adam and Eve into mortality and the cross,
by which Christ brings the hope of life back into the world.
The
cross of Christ takes center stage as we prepare to celebrate the redemption of
the world. And yet this is precisely the
day when we veil the crosses and, paradoxically, when the familiar verse, “Send
out thy light and thy truth,” takes a place of special prominence within the
Mass.
St.
Bernard of Clairvaux tells us that the final stage of learning to love God is
to give up our images of God—that we must forego the God whom we have tamed in
our imagination to be able to love the God who truly is, was and will be. In this final portion of our journey through
Lent, we too must veil our images if we are to be ready to meet the risen Lord
at Easter.
The
crucifix veiled on the altar is a central piece of my image of God. I bought it in Bethlehem. It hung in my house in Philadelphia. As a monk, it hung in my cell. Today, I say Mass in front of it. In years of praying with this crucifix, it
has become a source of solace and focus, but there is also a danger. It is easy to look at its familiar face as I
say my prayers and to let it become a symbol of the God whom I have created in
my image, the one who loves me too much to challenge me, the one whom I conform
to my image rather than conforming myself into his image.
St.
Bernard, of course, was not speaking of literal images, but of this danger of
loving a God we have made or that we believe we have the wisdom to fully comprehend
and predict. It was the beautiful Tree
of Life, we are told, that led to the fall in the garden because it became a
false image of redemption and life, while it was the repugnant instrument of
crucifixion that actually bore the noblest fruit. We must give up our own images to see things
as they are, to find God where he is rather than where we have convinced
ourselves he ought to be.
And
so today we cover our familiar images and open the Mass by praying, “O send out
thy light and thy truth that they may lead me and bring me unto thy holy hill,
and to thy dwelling.” We pray for God’s
light, not to walk by our own lights. We
pray for God’s truth, not our own subtlety.
We pray not to lead, but to become vulnerable and open ourselves that we
may be led. As we symbolically give up
our images, we pray that we may give up our comforting distortions to seek the
one who is always seeking us.
Two
weeks remain until the feast of the resurrection. Let us take the time to veil the images we
have created that we may see God clearly.
Let us notice not only where the image of God is obscured in our lives,
but also where we have created veils to mute the discomfort of his presence. Let us work to free ourselves of the God whom
we have created so that our hearts are prepared to receive one who is wonderful
beyond all imagining.
In
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
