40 Crosses for 40 Days: 20th Cross - The Good Shepherd and Sheep Cross
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This Lent journey of "40 crosses for 40 Days" is about cultivating a Catholic imagination, working on integrating the external and the internal by using one of our God-given faculties to ponder the symbols in our world, especially symbols of high significance like crosses, and connect them to our faith life. Uniting our imaginations with reason, not just with emotion and impulse, can open the door to true insight, into glimpsing the Really Real, the life of the Holy Trinity.
The humble, handmade clothespin cross below gives us an opportunity to stretch the imagination. What does it help us understand? What does it inspire? What kind of place would it be hanging in, and who might have made it? How does it help us interpret and internalize the Cross of Christ, especially in the ordinary events of our everyday lives?
Perhaps this cross speaks of a simple kitchen, of a flagstone floor swept clean, and white sheets drying in the wind on the clothesline outside. There is a simple supper being laid on the wooden table, kept simple because it is a Friday in Lent. The cross was fashioned from items that were available, and it serves its purpose. It elevates the mind and recalls the heart to the reason for Lent. As the poem below, Lent, by Robert Herrick, reminds us, this holy season calls us not to simply replace meat with plates filled "high with fish," but instead, to make an extra effort to give bread and meat to a "hungry soul," especially the spiritually hungry. The poem, like the cross, calls for an interior conversion that corresponds to our external actions. It reminds us to fast from strife, from old arguments and discord, to "circumcise our lives, and rend our hearts." In the final account, that is what it means "to keep Lent," to starve our sin at least as much as our stomachs, one clothespin, one simple task at a time.
Is this a fast, to keep
The larder lean ?
And clean
From fat of veals and sheep ?
Is it to quit the dish
Of flesh, yet still
To fill
The platter high with fish ?
Is it to fast an hour,
Or ragg’d to go,
Or show
A downcast look and sour ?
No ; ‘tis a fast to dole
Thy sheaf of wheat,
And meat,
Unto the hungry soul.
It is to fast from strife,
From old debate
And hate ;
To circumcise thy life.
To show a heart grief-rent ;
To starve thy sin,
Not bin ;
And that’s to keep thy Lent.
Starve thy sin, not [just] thy bin.
Let us pray: Holy Trinity, help us to keep Lent well. Remind us that the physical fasting and offerings we make should correspond to an interior change as well. And in all things, let us praise you. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
*Robert Herrick was a 17th century English poet who wrote on a number of everyday themes, from religion to spring to untidy clothes.
A life-long Catholic, Sarah has worked for the Catholic church for close to 20 years, helping parents, grandparents, godparents and children of all ages learn about and live their Catholic faith. A big believer in integrating reason with imagination, she especially loves using stories, particularly the stories of C.S.Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and the Inklings, as well as symbols and physical "stuff" to catechize and ponder over.
She earned her undergraduate degree in English from the University of Dallas, then went on to complete a Master's in Language and Literature at St. Mary's University and years later, while living on a farm in rural Indiana with kids, dogs, chickens and ducks, she earned a Master's degree in Theology from Franciscan University of Stuebenville. She is getting close to finishing a doctoral degree in Romantic Theology, and would love for you to follow her writing on Substack, as well as here at Catholic365.
