Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Taking wing

Today's Psalm expresses a deep human intuition and at the same time, a loss and frustration: "If only I had the wings of a dove, I would fly away and be at rest." It is as if deep down, we knew that we were supposed to have wings; we were supposed to fly: Where are our wings? 
It's easy enough to want wings to just "fly away and be at rest far away" as the Psalm says, but this is not mere escapism. The Psalmist isn't just flying away; this is a flying "towards": "I would wait for him who saves me."
Him-who-saves-me might as well be another name for Jesus. And today's feast of St. Bernardine of Siena is in its own way a feast of the Name of Jesus. Wherever Bernardine (15th century Franciscan, not a Jesuit, despite his devotion to the Holy Name!) would preach, people would create signs and paint frescoes with the abbreviation IHS (the Greek of J-E-S). And Bernardine would preach the "only name under heaven by which we are saved."
That custom of plastering the city with Jesus monograms also makes Bernardine the patron of advertisers...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I really enjoy your blog. :)