Once, during a trip to Philadelphia, I joined a guided tour of the City Hall. The Philadelphia City Hall is the magnificent blue and white edifice standing at one end of the Benjamin Franklin Partway facing the Museum of Art. It houses the various governmental offices, but it is also a work of art with many sculptures and the iconic statue of Billy Penn on top of its 500 ft. tower.
As in every guided tour, I heard much information, but the fact that stayed in my mind was that building City Hall took 30 years, and as soon as it was built, they had to start repairing it.
This is something we all can relate to. Our present monastery was built in 1972, but we have been repairing it bit by bit, room by room, problem by problem, since 2001. The latest problem to come to our attention is that the cast-iron water pipes in the basement are cracked and need to be replaced.
This ongoing process of repairing is something that invades life for us all! Even if it isn’t on such a monumental scale, we are continually repairing something, if only to clean up after the cat. We install a machine, and we have barely learned how to use it when we need to call in the repairman. We sign a contract, and before we turn around, the company goes out of business, or they cease to furnish that service. We make or buy some clothes, and in no time, they don’t fit any more. I even feel guilty about eating because it takes so much time to eat a meal that is eaten in 15 or 20 minutes!
And, of course, I go to Confession and keep confessing the same sins over and over again. At least it’s some relief when I commit them in a different style or situation! That shows that I am not completely hide-bound. I do have a little creativity, if only in my faults!
This world of ours, these souls that we are, continually keep falling apart! Physically and spiritually, there is always something that needs to be fixed, to be mended and repaired. We never seem to get something to stay as it should be.
I was thinking about all this recently (just before my last Confession?) and there came into my mind Jesus’ words, “My Father is still working, and I also am working”(Jn 5, 17). God is not the clockmaker deity the Enlightenment proclaimed. He is a repairman, always at work to repair the ravages of sin and to bring back to its true order and beauty the world he created and redeemed. It is not surprising that the Son of God became a carpenter, a handyman who made things and repaired them. He and his Father and the Holy Spirit have been doing that since sin first entered the beautiful world and its inhabitants that they made and delighted in.
Every time that we dust the furniture, wash the dishes, file a report, help someone return to health, whether physical or spiritual, we are sharing in God’s re-creation and redemption of a fallen and wounded world. However boring or repetitive a job may be, we can rejoice that we are sharing in God’s work of bringing that small bit of creation back to its rightful beauty. There are many forms of healing and each of them is an act of love. To bring a smile to someone’s face heals their heart, even if only for a minute, but that minute of joy is indelibly written in God’s memory and in the heart of the one who smiled and the one who brought forth the smile.
All this may seem to be little when compared to the tragedies that we hear in the news, but they are not less real and because they share in God’s repair work, they have a never-ending power. In such little ways, we share in His redemption of the world.
Sister Gabriela of the Incarnation is a member of the Discalced Carmelites order in Flemington. Learn more at www.flemingtoncarmel.org.