The reflection I chose for this week is a modern translation of the Anima Christi – a prayer which became most well-known through St Ignatius Loyola and his Spiritual Exercises. Although it was not he who originally wrote it, one can see distinctly Jesuit qualities in its content: it is passionate and intimate as well as deeply sacramental. What more fitting prayer for the beginning of Passiontide?
Reflecting upon it this week, I found myself particularly caught on the words, ‘on each of my dyings’ – for Christians have many dyings in our lives, do we not? There is the first one, at our baptism, and the ‘little death’ each night when we fall asleep. And, of course, the final death of our mortal bodies.
But there are also many other kinds of deaths: the death of our innocence and childish fantasies; the death of our first love; the death of illusions we create of ourselves and those whom we come to know well. There is the call for all Christians to a daily dying of self to Christ, which further urges us to a death of ego and self-will. And although each of these deaths may carry with them some pain and loss, they are not all bad, for they help us to learn and grow. Yet, without the light of Christ’s love, all those deaths would feel very desolate and hopeless.
As the crucifixes and images are shrouded this week and next, and we are deprived of the familiar images we take comfort in and maybe take for granted, I wonder where else we may find Christ’s light and love, and what deaths we may need to die in order to discover them.
Mother Amanda