The Safest Possible Place: Weekly message for 03-12-2024

And so my heart rejoices, my soul is glad; even my body shall rest in safety. For you will not leave my soul among the dead… (Psalm 16).

Dear Friends,

In his wonderful little essay “The Lamb Redeemed the Sheep: Reflections on the Symbolism of Easter,” Cardinal Ratzinger makes an astonishing claim. When we look at Christ, the Lamb who was slain, we see heaven opened. When we look at Christ, the Lamb who was slain, we know that God acts. When  we look at Christ, the Lamb who was slain, we are immune to ultimate fear, even if we get into the situation of the Lamb; for there we are in the safest possible place.

For most of us, suffering and death do not appear to be the safest possible place. Yet, might it be that God’s ways are not our ways, and his thoughts are not our thoughts? Might it be that God sees what we cannot; and that the designs of his heart endure forever, to deliver our souls from death?

As we prepare to enter Holy Week — the holiest and also the most mysterious of weeks — we remember that where Jesus is, there also will his followers be (John 12:26). And that there on Calvary, loved by Christ and sharing in his suffering, we are in the safest possible place.

God bless,

Fr. John Pietropaoli
Two Priests and a Mic podcaster