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THIS WEEK'S WORK SITE: The Readings for the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 28, 2005: Jeremiah 20:7-9; Psalm 63:2-9; Romans 12:1-2; Matthew 16:21-27.

THE CROSS IN UNEXPECTED PLACES

INITIAL REFLECTIONS:

"Take up your cross and follow in my steps."

There's a fellow named Pete who owns a working class bar in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. In addition to running a bar, Pete's also an outfitter for elk hunters, a bail bondsman...and a religion teacher at his local parish.

I visit Pagosa every year to renew old friendships and to head into the majestic San Juan Range on horseback. It's always an experience of grace...grace that comes wrapped in an odd combination of campfire smoke, damp sleeping bags, slick and shiny trout, strong horses and, of course, breath-taking mountain vistas.

It's hard not to think about God when you find yourself in the Rockies. This year, the spiritual dimension of the trip started taking shape before the horses were the corraled.

Behind Pete's bar, above rows of bottles and jars of pretzels, hangs a large, beveled mirror. From the edge of the mirror peeks a small Palm Sunday cross. I don't know if many of Pete's patrons notice the cross, but I do. And at the moment it strikes my eye, the humble presence of that cross adds a new dimension to the ruckus of laughter and friendship.

The next day I join Pete, twenty-one horses and eleven other people for a five-day trek on the Continental Divide. We head up on a Saturday morning and celebrate Mass that evening at a mountain camp. The following morning I notice that the cross I had fashioned from two twigs for the altar is stuck beneath the ropes of Pete's packhorse.

That cross accompanied us the rest of the trip, up narrow trails to 13,000 feet and down steep inclines into valleys of lush meadows and tall pines. As we trudged across bald ridges and prayed our way through storms full of lightning and hail, the fragile cross jostled along, held in place by the taut ropes of a double diamond rigging.

"Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice."

The discovery of crosses in unexpected places never fails to stir me. Compared to crosses of polished metal or varnished wood, crosses found in non-church settings, especially in the world of nature, are usually rustic serve to heighten the rugged character of the Tree on which hung the salvation of the world.

Such crosses remind me of the cost of our redemption. I notice them when I place the Body of Christ in a palm of a worker whose callused skin is cross-hatched with dark lines of grease and grime, honest dirt that refuses to be washed away for Sunday Mass.

A similar sensation occurred three weeks ago when I attended the funeral of a rancher in west Texas. At the gravesite stood an arrangemenbt of flowers and two weathered boards. The boards were wired into the shape of the cross and burned into the gray planks was the brand of the family ranch.

"For You my flesh pines."

Although the second reading and the gospel are not meant to be thematically related, I can't help but notice a reverberation of physical references withn them along with a similar pattern in the psalm and the selection from Jeremiah (i.e. a fire that burns in the heart, a soul that thirsts, Paul's exhortation to offer one's body in as a spiritual sacrifice, a Savior who will suffer).

This "reverberation of the physical" is leading me to concentrate on way in whcih the cross of Christ appears not only in work-related settings, but also in the physical ache that accompanies the burden that daily work often entails.

I thought of this just yesterday as I assisted my 92-year-old father from his wheelchair into his bed. Though Dad has lost considerable weight in the past year, his body feld surprisingly heavy and for a second I was afraid he would slip from my grasp. As I gripped him tighter and guided him toward the bed, I happened to notice the crucifix on the wall. Later, upon leaving the parking lot of the nursing facility, I recalled one of the earliest memories I have of my dad: his strong hands gripping my chest and lifting me to touch the crucifix that hung above the bed in my room.

"Your right hand upholds me."

As I begin to prepare this week's homily, I hope to uncover additional instances of the cross appearing in unexpected places, especially in the lives of my parishioners. I know a telephone lineman in my parish, for instance, whom I intend to call. Mike occasionally mentions the gaffs that he and his fellow workers stap onto their boots to climb the poles. He's also mentioned the scars on the arms of those whose feet have slipped while climbing poles that were waving back and forth in strong winds.

It will be interesting to know if Mike ever looks at the pole he must climb, with their wooden arms extended against the sky, and thinks of the cross.

I hope some of my ruminations are helpful to you readers. If you wish to share thoughts and insights of your own, please post them below. Your participation will be much appreciated.

[For a fuller explanation of my work-based approach to preaching, return to the Blue Collar Preacher home page and read the first chapter from Preacher in a Hard Hat on the BOOKS page. An archive of my homilies appears under PARISH on the St. Aloysius Church link at the top of this page.]