By His Stripes

by Danielle Bean - April 22, 2011

Reprinted with permission.

"How old are you, anyway?"

The older woman's voice boomed through the church and echoed from the walls.

"Thirty-eight," I answered with a whisper.

"And all of these kids are yours?" she pressed on. Loudly.

I was trapped. It was Wednesday night of Holy Week, and my inquisitor and I stood together, smack-dab in the middle of a terrifically long line for confession. It appeared that a number of my fellow parishioners shared my plan of a last-minute soul scrubbing before Easter.

I was not about to give up my precious place in that line, but I did begin to wonder why I had the misfortune of winding up in the spot that I did.

My new-found friend asked me about my reasons for homeschooling, my political opinions, and the price of my kids' sweatshirts and haircuts before launching into a detailed description of the time her cat brought home a dead chipmunk and she thought it was a sock and so she tried to take it from her cat's mouth and then actually held the dead rodent in her hand before realizing her mistake and Lawdy, was she ever disgusted!

Have you ever heard a person shouting into a cell phone over the noise of a crowded room? She was a little louder than that. Except instead of a noisy room there was only a quiet church.

I smiled weakly and offered brief, whispered responses to her stories and incessant personal questions. I shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, shuffled through my purse in search of imaginary items, and finally resorted to simply staring at my shoes.

Undaunted by the lack of eye contact, she talked on. The non-confrontational introvert in me wrestled with the idea of whispering something quick and polite like, "I'm sure some of these people would like some quiet time to pray," or, "Jesus is here in the tabernacle, so we should probably stop talking now."

But in the end, I said nothing, and the woman's legs gave out before her voice did.

"I'm going to have to sit down," she announced. "Will you save my place in line?"

Certainly. Gladly. Please do go right on over to that faraway pew and have yourself a seat.

As blessed silence once again blanketed the church, it was tempting to round out my confession list by thinking unkind thoughts about clueless and intrusive strangers. But as I exchanged knowing looks of relief with some of my fellow line-dwellers, I found myself thinking something else. It went like this:

What a big fat sinful mess we are!

Every one of us, from the blue-haired teen nervously nibbling her thumbnail, to the old man with an oxygen tank strapped to his back, to the impatient, weary mom of many just waiting for her turn to get clean.

We weren't waiting in line to share our various perfections with the priest behind the screen. We were waiting in line to confess our dirt – the time and time again that we rejected God, rejected Love, and chose instead ugly things with ugly names: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony.

We were waiting to bathe in the blood of Christ. Not because we were worthy. Not because we had earned His mercy. But because, for all our other imperfections, we had gotten one important thing right: We knew that we needed Jesus. He was worth waiting for.

We humans are such messy things. Situations that call for us to interact with one another can quickly become messiness multiplied. I recognize Christ in the Eucharist and in the confessional, but how readily do I see His face in my husband, my children, my friends – and annoying but probably lonely strangers in line for confession? How often do I practice seeing Him in myself – in my own hands, feet, mind, and voice – the ones with which He longs to practice His mercy? How often do I reflect upon the mercy He shows me and aim to show the same to others?

Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured. While we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins, Upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed. (Is 53:4-5)

The same Christ who walked the earth, who healed the sick, who bled on the cross, and who rose from the dead is truly present among us. He is in our churches, in our homes, in our hearts, and behind the face of every person we meet.

Our Lord is here. The one by whose stripes we are healed. He alone can fill us where we are lacking, strengthen us where we are weak, and heal us where we are broken and burned.

Will we seek Him? He lies waiting in the tomb.

Danielle Bean, a mother of eight, is senior editor of Faith & Family magazine and author of My Cup of Tea: Musings of a Catholic Mom (Pauline 2005) and Mom to Mom, Day to Day: Advice and Support for Catholic Living (Pauline 2007). Visit her blog at www.daniellebean.com.