Lenten Reflection Series, 29 March 2009

SACRAMENTS

"A sacrament is physical and within it is God's love; as a sandwich is physical, and nutritious and pleasurable, and within it is love, if someone makes it for you and gives it to you with love; even harried or tired or impatient love, but with love's direction and concern, love's again and again wavering and distorted focus on goodness; then God's love too is in the sandwich.

Making sandwiches while sitting in a wheelchair is not physically difficult. But it can be a spiritual trial; the chair always makes me remember my legs and how I lived with them. I am beginning my ninth year as a cripple. The memory of having legs that held me upright at this counter and the image of simply turning from the counter are the demons I must keep at bay. So I must try to know the spiritual essence of what I am doing.

On Tuesdays when I make lunches for my girls I focus on this: the sandwiches are sacraments. Not the miracle of transubstantiation, but moving in the same direction. Each motion is a sacrament, this holding of knives, of bread, this spreading of mustard, this trimming of ham. I drive on the highway to their school, and this is not simply a transition: it is my love moving by car; even if I do not feel or acknowledge it, this is a sacrament."

--Andre Dubus