A Manageable God

I got to spend a few minutes in Adoration yesterday (then had to leave because of a sneezing fit), and a thought occurred to me as I looked on the Blessed Sacrament.

This is not a criticism of how hosts are made and used, okay?

The exposed Body of Christ had been confected from one of those large (maybe 5") round wafers that has a pattern stamped into it to make it easier to break into uniform pieces for communion, and I thought, "We all want to do that... stamp our own pattern on Christ and break Him into manageable bits... bits that can be neatly handled. How badly we want Him to be predictable and safe."

Like a tame lion. But as C.S. Lewis pointed out, "He's not a tame lion".

How often we project our own image onto Christ.

I heard a woman, a former sister of the Missionaries of Charity (sorry I don't recall her name or the show I was listening to, but it was on Relevant Radio) talking a little yesterday about how Mother Teresa always urged the sisters to see Christ in everyone they met. So far from looking at others and seeing Christ, we often look at Christ and see only ourselves, or someone comfortably like ourselves.

Comments

[John Kasaian]

Wow! You sure get to the quick of things, Tim. What an excellent lenten observation.
Thnaks!.

[pNielsen]

Reminds me of an Anne Lamott quote. Paraphrased, "We know we've made God into our own image when He starts hating the same people we do."