Armor and Waycloak

One of the many, many bits of wisdom the Church has accumulated through the centuries is the use of small bodily gestures by the faithful. People laugh, I think, because we do these things--genuflecting, dipping our fingers in the holy water, and so forth--without thinking about them, but to do them without thought is exactly the point. We don't think about breathing either, unless something's off-kilter. When we're upset or scared, then we have to focus: breathe in--breathe out. It's no accident that Ki, the word that Westerners use to mean life-force or energy, really means breath: just as it's no accident that pneuma, wind, also means the Holy Spirit.

My dad likes to tell a story about a lady he knew when he was a boy, who taught him to let a few droplets of water fall from his fingers when he blessed himself at the holy water font in the vestibule. Why? As a little offering for the thirsty souls in Purgatory. The punchline of the story is that he met her again, many years later as an adult, and told her he had always remembered her teaching him that--and it turned out she herself had forgotten it in the interim! He was given the gift of being able to teach it back to her.

 

My wife taught me something when we were dating: when you make the Sign of the Cross, don't just flick your fingers around. What you are doing is donning the Armor of Righteousness and the Waycloak of the Pilgrim Church, so cover your torso with bold movements. Yes, it ought to be reflexive (unless something is off-kilter!), but reflexive doesn't mean unintelligent. Drawing your sword in the face of a dragon is reflexive.

 

Eternity is always happening now, in the small bodily moments. That's the whole point of us, of souls in dust--it's why we're neither beasts nor angels. It only makes sense to train your body to worship the Lord of Hosts, just as we do with our minds and hearts and souls. So when you make the Sign of the Cross, brothers and sisters--raise it high.