IC XC
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NI KA
Building on the Garment in the earlier post, there may be different types of things in it. There may be discovered, early in one’s life, an aptitude for music, baking, sports, mathematics, or some other thing. By aptitude here I mean only that one likes it or finds it easy to learn. A choice may be made to develop this aptitude into full on proficiency or even more. There are also cases of “child prodigy” but Mozart had to evidently like music enough for his father to give him a chance in the first place. Once engaged fully, one’s aptitude becomes a thing: one may be a great pianist or footballer, one can paint or cook, one can think through engineering equations without using a pencil and paper. In rare cases one’s aptitude may be so great that one can even branch out: be an amazing pitcher and batter, run bases and touchdowns, do gymnastics and ballet, or even physics and theology. The list goes on.
But there may be something in the garment that are less fabulous. We darn’t use the term “aptitude” but one has developed wounds, coping skills, scars, limps, and the ability to cover them all up as well. There may be things arising from abuse, or in utero hormonal issues, drugs, things that happened to one in school, or in war, or on a bad night out with a drunk driver. These things happen to us as well and they leave their marks on our garment. The garment is torn and patched, is made to reflect nothing so much as the fullest story of our lives.
We are, in presenting ourselves to the world, both ourselves as created by God, and ourselves as seen through the garment we wear. We cannot discard the garment. But we dare not confuse it for who we are in God’s eyes.
Can God change our garment? Yes. Certainly. What the Church calls a “Charism” – a spiritual gift given to an individual for the building up of the Church – is no less a part of this garment than the coping skills we learned in college, and work through on a weekly basis. God can take away the one (the Charism) when he done with it, and he can also take away the other when he’s done with it as well. But, provided we have the right attitude towards these gifts – and more on that in a moment – the length of time we have these things is exactly the length of time God wants us to make use of them both for our own salvation and the building up of those around us in Christ’s body.
Praying through this, it seems, in the area of God’s Permissive Will, that our wounds are Charisms also.
There’s this hymn, Crown Him With Many Crowns, one of my favorites. Verse three runs:
Crown him the Lord of love;
– Author : Matthew Bridges (1851); Alterer: Godfrey Thring (1871)
behold his hands and side,
rich wounds, yet visible above,
in beauty glorified;
no angels in the sky
can fully bear that sight,
but downward bends their burning eye
at mysteries so bright.
Those wounds – visible above – were wounds inflicted on Jesus by the Romans going to the Cross. But there’s more: for the Incarnation gave God an eye color and a hair color. God has physical measurements, a size of clothes to wear. God has a tone of voice, and even a smell. God the Son is a glorified human being. He has certain foods he likes – his mother’s, one assumes, are among his favorites – and probably some he dislikes. God’s wounds began at the moment of Incarnation. Even though he may bear in himself the fullness of Godhead, there were somethings in his humanity that he could not do: bear children, breastfeed. He was a human in ways that you and I cannot be (because sinless) but also in ways exactly like you and I. He was mortal. He was a certain age when he died. I could go on, but I hope the point is evident: God the Son was a specific human being with specific human qualities, ie, a specific garment. By the end of his life the garment included the physical wounds of crucifixion.
And after his Resurrection the Garment is glorified. But the wounds are still visible. And they are not just images of wounds or scars: for he invited Thomas to put his hand inside his side. They are not fleshy in that he’s not gushing blood. But something about his glorified and resurrected body allows us to celebrate the wounds by which we have been saved.
And so it shall be with us if we but let it be so. Your wounds – your entire garment – can be gloried. And by that, I mean that if you will but let God work his will in your life, he can heal the wounds, but glorify them as well. In your weakness his is strength made perfect through Grace. Your wounds – fallen on you without your choice – can be offered to God in union with Messiah’s sacrifice on the Cross and thus become only so many more charisms for the building up of the Church, the salvation of your soul, and the glorification of Christ.
The Charisms God gives you for the Church, for her buildling up, and for your salvation, may fall on “the official list” or not. But one item is never on the “official” list: you. God did not give the Charism of Administration to the Church in the Abstract. He gave that gift to you with your likes and dislikes, your voice, you personal skills and even your smell. The gift to the Church is not your Charism, but rather how that Charism manifests in you. Everything in the Church is about Relationship: the three persons in the trinity, one with the others, the incarnation of the Son and his relationships with persons in the Gospel and with you, and his relationship to the Church, and finally your relationships with the Son, through him with the Father and the Spirit, and with others inside and beyond the Church. That full spectrum of relationship is the fullness of the field of activity for your Charisms.
And your list of Charisms includes everything in the garment from the color of your hair to the wounds you carry. Offer your cross to God and it becomes your charism. And, in the final perseverance, you, too, will bear wounds that “no angel in the sky can fully bear the sight, but downward bend their burning eye at mystery so bright.” You, too, and your wounds, will shine with Divine glory.
What does it mean to offer your wounds? What is the right attitude for your aptitudes?
Well, first off, you must recognize your wounds for what they are. They are not part of you yet. They are not integrated fully – if they were they would not be wounds. And where they are we must acknowledge that they are caused by sin – either the sins of others or our own – or else they are caused by the frailty of our fallen human nature. We were not intended to be born this way. But the world is as it is now. That cannot be undone. So we must acknowledge that our wounds are a shortcoming, a missing the mark, something that does not quite yet fully manifest God’s plan for Creation and your own life. Then we must offer it to God to do with has he wills – entirely as he wills, and freely. Will he cure it, leave it in place, make it fruitful in other ways? No telling. And what is today’s answer as you pray may not be tomorrow’s answer. We are the clay before the potter or, by way of analogy, we are Mary the Virgin saying yes to the Angel. We do not know what will come of our yes, but we give it fully. And we trust in God’s love that all things after that time will live up to God’s love for our soul.
And when we fall again into sin – even through our wounds – we will begin again.
it is possible for God to remake the garment entirely. But he really only wants to undo the part that is – in itself – sinful. All else that may be caused by wounds inflicted without our choice or made worse by our own actions can be healed or glorified – but still visible. That is God’s choice. Not ours.
Our only choice is to say yes.
And wait.
These ideas are unfolding. But I recieved some seeds thanks to Fr John Nepil’s conversation with Larry Chapp, the folks at Desert Stream Ministry, and my brothers in formation for the Diaconate, especially in our Ecclesiology and Philosophy classes.
Orthoparadoxy 
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