Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Being Broken...

Jesus was broken on the cross. He lived his suffering and death not as an evil to avoid at all costs, but as a mission to embrace. We too are broken. We live with broken bodies, broken hearts, broken minds or broken spirits. We suffer from broken relationships.

How can we live our brokenness? Jesus invites us to embrace our brokenness as he embraced the cross and live it as part of our mission. He asks us not to reject our brokenness as a curse from God that reminds us of our sinfulness but to accept it and put it under God's blessing for our purification and sanctification. Thus our brokenness can become a gateway to new life.

Henri Nouwen, from Bread for the Journey

This, surely, is the very heart of the lived Gospel of Christ. Our own brokenness becomes not only a gateway to new life, but a source of life for others: those we meet, those we pray for, those we forgive. Only being broken can the bread become Eucharist.

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