In one of Saint Benedict Parish’s recent preaching series, Set Apart, Fr. Simon used the word ‘ontological’ to refer to our spiritual DNA. Ontology looks at the big WHY? questions, like what it means to exist, and what is reality, really? From our point of view, sometimes reality can pounce on us like a roaring lion seeking what it may devour, and that can be a pretty bruising encounter. As children, when we ran home crying with our playground bruises or ouchies, we looked to our mother to kiss our ouchie and make it all better.
The responses to the COVID pandemic have pummelled us with one-two punch combinations that have given us lots of surface bruising, individually, socially, and economically, along with some deep bruising. The experience of being on the receiving end of ontological-level ouchies can provoke some soul searching. Where do we go to receive healing for our deeply felt ouchies?
Politics, philosophy, and theology are all in the business of trying to get us to change our minds, but what if the deep healing of our ontological ouchies also requires a change of heart? David sensed this when he prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God,” (Psalm 51:10). Like him, we can be made aware of the mother of all ontological ouchies, our sin. In this situation, who do we run to for a healing kiss? It is to Christ, our Bridegroom, of whom Paul says, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is an [ontologically] new creature,” (2 Corinthians 5:17). They are born again. And, from Psalm 147:3, “The Lord... is the healer of the brokenhearted.” When a loving kiss touches our lips it simultaneously touches our heart.
The Sacraments of the Church, the kisses of Christ, are two dimensional. Like a kiss, at the surface level, they are physical realities; water, bread, wine, oil, touch, and proclamation, but, in a deeper sense, they are the conduits through which the balm God’s grace and love is poured over our hearts. The COVID restrictions have reduced our access to the Sacraments, so as well as giving us ontological ouchies these restrictions have also given us ontological longings.
Blog lead Photo by Guy Roberts on Unsplash
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