Resiliency and Cockroaches

Eccl 1:2-11
Ps 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14 and 17bc
Lk 9:7-9

Seminary has tough demands on life, like waking up for 6:30 Mass and Morning Prayer. I’m not a morning person and sometimes it is a last second scramble to get into the chapel on time, especially if I wake up late. One time, I was really late and didn’t even have time to put on my glasses by the nightstand, I just ran to my sink, washed my face, and myself together as best as I could with the few precious seconds I had. In my rush, I realized I stepped on something with a crunch. I froze. I didn’t want to look because I was late and I didn’t want to look because I had a sinking feeling I knew what it was. I was hoping against hope that it wouldn’t be what I thought it was: a cockroach. But it was. When I had a brief moment as I was putting on my socks, I looked down and there it was a big huge cockroach smooshed against the carpet. I didn’t clean it up, I just left it there because I was late. I rushed out the door and into the chapel. An hour and a half later, I came back to find that it was gone and with it, the feeling of safety against a vengeful cockroach… I really hate cockroaches.

“John I beheaded. Who then is this about whom I hear such things?” Herod, who represents the world, is puzzled and perplexed about this man Jesus and his followers. “I thought I smashed that cockroach, why on earth is it still moving and where did I go?!” Resiliency, this cockroach has had a few million years of evolutionary survival going for it and all I had was my haphazard foot.
Like plants that are pruned at the stem, like newly planted crops with blades of green piercing through the dead soil, or the gleam of metal shining through after a hard polish, so are we as Christians called to a resiliency that would trample over death. Plants are incredibly beautiful as they are growing, the life is literally budding out of the stem and there is a sense of promise and hope. And each day they grow as if they had never been hurt or cut before. A beautiful tabernacle tarnished age does not looses its shine because of oxidation and is covered up. But a few hard moments of polish and elbow grease will reveal the inner beauty of the precious metal in no time.

Miracles are an interesting phenomenon. They are a mystery of a temporary bending in the laws of nature that seem to pass beyond reason. Like it is said at the beginning of the Song of Bernadette, “For those who believe, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe, no explanation is possible.” Miracles seem to draw a line in the ground, to separate the believer from the skeptic. Especially in the life of St Pio, it was not enough for the devil to harass and torture him nightly; he was constantly harassed and persecuted by Church leaders and skeptics, people that were supposed to be on his side. The naysayers will say that his stigmata was self-inflicted. Scientists will say that he could not survive the blood loss. The skeptics and atheists would say that he is just drawing attention to himself. These are the Herods, the ones that in the face of a miracle say: “John I beheaded. Who then is this about whom I hear such things?” The atheists and scientists believe they have discredited and have gotten rid of this Jesus by finding excuses and ways to disprove a miracle. They think they have it all together to smash a stained-glass miracle with the sledgehammer of reason. But the light still shines through, the green still buds out, and the flower petals still open. Truth will reign, resilient.
St Pio himself covered his wounds with gloves cut at the finger tips to hide his “embarrassment.” His holiness, his very person would not have himself displayed like a circus act or a museum piece. He desired above all to humbly minister to the people, despite the miracles and in spite of his detractors. He felt completely unworthy to receive the wounds of Christ and asked they be taken away. He wanted not the attention of the miracles but used them as a gift to bring people to God. His miracles were unstoppable because they exuded all that was good and all that was holy, a resilient Truth. St Pio was silenced, accusations were made, and his miracles exploited, but being a man of God he lived his life in complete adoration to God.

When seeing those gloves of St Pio, I am reminded of Christ’s hands on the cross, the hands of a priest. St Pio’s gloves covered the wounds that would bleed constantly like Christ’s hands on the cross. The blood that Christ poured out from his hands flows out of the immense love he has. Hands that are meant to hold are now given as a gift to his people. The gloves had to be changed constantly because the flow of blood never stopped. Like Christ, his love for us poured out now in the Precious Blood never stops. It soaks through and permeates anything that tries to stop it and anything that tries to contain it. Why? Because of the resiliency of the love and truth that comes from Christ. The love and care in the anointed hands of a priest should likewise be ever flowing, never ceasing, never stifled. They should be tired at the end of the day from working, but regenerated the next in holding Christ’s body and blood in the celebration of the Mass. If Herod beheaded John the Baptist, covering the light of Christ out of scorn of Truth, St Pio covered his hands out of the reverence for the Truth.

Let not the prodigies of St Pio cover up the Truth, but reveal the resiliency and perseverance of the faith in following Jesus Christ. In the face of persecution and detraction for being a believer of God and a follower of Jesus Christ, may we be unabashed at living our lives as a constant witness of his good graces and infinite love. And if the miracles of St Pio are not enough to satisfy your desire for awe and wonder for God, turn your mind below to the brave cockroach that would live to fight another day and terrorize a poor seminarian.