The case of the headless Christ

This is a true story and was shared by an experienced missionary at a retreat I was leading recently.

The lady in question (a good Protestant) was going to a Catholic retreat Centre for a thirty day Ignatian retreat. Now anyone who puts themselves forward for such an experience is serious about following Jesus, and she most definitely is. She had geared herself up for what she expected would be a watershed experience in her Christian life, and travelled to the retreat centre in a state of high spiritual intensity.

When she arrived she was shown to the little bedroom that would be her home for the next month. As she unpacked she decided to re-arrange what little furniture there was to make it more homely. As she did so, she brushed passed a crucifix hanging on the wall above the bed, and it fell to ground with a thud. She stooped to pick it up, but was distressed to find that the head had broken off, and she was left holding a headless crucifix. Getting down on her hand and knees she saw the head had rolled like a miniature football under the bed, so she reached out and recovered it, but now she had a dilemma.

Should she replace the crucifix (now headless) on the wall, and hope that no-one noticed? Or should she hide it away in the drawer, and also hope that no-one noticed it was missing? Either way, she wondered how her Catholic friends would react to a broken crucifix, and just how serious a spiritual offence decapitating a figure of Jesus might be considered. What kind of penance might she be asked to perform?

After some internal struggle she decided the best thing would be to conceal the broken crucifix, along with the head of Jesus, in her bedside cabinet, praying that her misdemeanour would go undetected. She resolved that at the first opportunity she would go into the nearby town, buy some superglue, and re-attached the head.

It was not until almost the end of the retreat that this was possible as the daily schedule was tight and retreatants were discouraged from leaving the centre so as not to interrupt the flow of their retreat. Eventually, having procured the superglue, and having performed some minor surgery, she re-attached the head to the body and the crucifix was returned to its place on the wall. There it remains to this day, with the head intact, and only the faintest of lines to be tell where the damage had been.

As she recounted this adventure to us, we rolled with laughter, and she did too. She told us that the most important word that came to her during the retreat was this: LIGHTEN UP! Her vulnerability in telling us this story brought healing to us all, for laughter does that. As Proverbs says: ‘A cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength.’ (17:22)

It wasn’t Oswald Chambers who said, ‘Beware intensity in religion’, but it could have been for it is the kind of thing he would have said. Sometimes the more zealous we are for God the more serious we become, and intensity and grace don’t mix too well. When we get intense it is usually a sign that we have moved over into self-effort and are getting into religious mode. Grace frees us to be relaxed and natural, even in our seeking after God, and to enjoy what Sheila Walsh termed ‘the incredible lightness of grace.’

May you and I seek after God with all our hearts, but do so without the intensity that robs us of our joy or playfulness.