At this point in our trip, we have already seen the traditional sites of Peter's denial, Jesus' imprisonment, and the place of his sentencing and scourging. We have walked the Way of the Cross, touched the rock of Golgotha, and prayed at the slab upon which Christ's own body lay in the Holy Sepulcher. Our group has retraced the history of Israel, walking through the hidden passages of ancient kingdoms and entering into the heart of cities that have long since perished that we might walk the very streets that Jesus, Mary and Joseph walked - in places where they definitely walked.
Perhaps I am experiencing spiritual overload, but the objective glory of these sites has been utterly overshadowed by my complete inability to comprehend them. Upon leaving the prison in which Jesus spent his loneliest night, I could not help but say, "It is just a stone room." Upon leaving the Holy Sephulcher, I could not help but say, "It is just a rock." I have stood where our Blessed Mother herself stood, I have kissed the very place in which death was destroyed, and now... I am in a hotel lobby on a computer? Why has not the world stopped turning?
Lest I forget, allow me to remind myself of something - something which we may all need to hear. How often we enter a miraculous place expecting to see the miraculous! How often we seek out the extraordinary, disenchanted with the ordinary! How fickle we are. We are as fickle as our first pope, St. Peter, when he denied Christ three times after vowing to go even to the death with him. How appropriate that the Sepulcher is just a rock. God calls each one of us to find the extraordinary in the ordinariness of our lives, striving to be great saints in the littlest of ways. We are convinced that God was born in a manger, worked as a carpenter, gave himself in the form of bread and wine, and died on a tree. Should we be suprised that the memorial of salvation is a rock?
Perhaps I am experiencing spiritual overload, but the objective glory of these sites has been utterly overshadowed by my complete inability to comprehend them. Upon leaving the prison in which Jesus spent his loneliest night, I could not help but say, "It is just a stone room." Upon leaving the Holy Sephulcher, I could not help but say, "It is just a rock." I have stood where our Blessed Mother herself stood, I have kissed the very place in which death was destroyed, and now... I am in a hotel lobby on a computer? Why has not the world stopped turning?
Lest I forget, allow me to remind myself of something - something which we may all need to hear. How often we enter a miraculous place expecting to see the miraculous! How often we seek out the extraordinary, disenchanted with the ordinary! How fickle we are. We are as fickle as our first pope, St. Peter, when he denied Christ three times after vowing to go even to the death with him. How appropriate that the Sepulcher is just a rock. God calls each one of us to find the extraordinary in the ordinariness of our lives, striving to be great saints in the littlest of ways. We are convinced that God was born in a manger, worked as a carpenter, gave himself in the form of bread and wine, and died on a tree. Should we be suprised that the memorial of salvation is a rock?
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