What We Have in Common

            In His Last Judgment parable of the sheep and the goats, Jesus shockingly claims:  “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.”  He says these words to the righteous, who fail to see the connection.  Then Jesus repeats these statements about Himself to the unrighteous, and they too are incredulous about the relation.  Our Divine Savior curiously enters the world of restriction---of His diet, of His being known, of His being protected, of His being healthy, and of His being free to move or even escape---regardless of our acknowledgement of it.  Why?

            Through my jaw I have been introduced over the past months to a whole new world of restriction.  As the initial symptoms of pain increased, my range of possible options to feel better seemed to decrease.  Even the focused counsel of my orthodontist to be seen by a particular specialist in Florida had something frightening about it:  Really?  Only one person---this person who is far away, someone who has developed a novel technique I’ve never heard of---is the best (only?) one who can help me?

            As it turned out, this person---Dr. Mark Piper---could help me.  In visiting the Piper Clinic I came to realize just what I had in common with the hidden multitudes who suffer with TMJ problems.  For months all sorts of people had come to me with anecdotes about their jaw afflictions, and the numbers have only increased since I had the surgery.  I never knew how common this was.  To put it another way, I never knew what I shared with so many friends and strangers. 

            There are obviously all sorts of “communities” of suffering, so to speak:  those who battle cancer, for example, or those who live with diabetes or a genetic abnormality.  One of the triumphs of modern medicine (even if a partial one) is to connect those who have similar challenges, so that they can find the simple human consolation of having something which would otherwise be excruciatingly isolating in common. 

            The outer limit of what we have in common is, of course and paradoxically, death.  As a Priest, I have witnessed the profound connections that can develop among those who have lost a child or a spouse.  It is often like the visceral solidarity of veterans of war, who have lived through the unspeakable, experiencing it from slightly different points but on the same battlefield.

            On the first day I was in St. Petersburg to prepare for surgery, I was able to meet up with Fr. Ben Muhlenkamp of our Diocese.  He was spending some days of vacation with a parishioner of his whom he had first met through the tragedy of this man losing his wife in a car accident.  I was happy to meet my friend and also make the acquaintance of Stan. 

            Over the course of the day of enjoying each other’s company and talking about his wife, Stan kept referring to a book that had helped him immensely.  He kept dozens of copies of Prayer Book for Widows by Kay M. Cozad in his trunk, because wherever he went he discovered people who might benefit from the prayers of one who had “been through” their suffering and learned to recognize the Lord at the center of it all.  He gave me a copy to share with my parishioners.

            Why does Jesus enter our world of countless abysmal restrictions except to grant us the grace of recognizing through all of them that we have Him in common; He is the living center of the most unexpected modes of holy communion, even and especially where we would feel most powerless and alone.  Through His divine omnipotence and benevolence, Christ uses His human nature---stretched to the limit and beyond the limit---to reveal the length and breadth, height and depth, of our membership in His Mystical Body.    How infinitely strange and utterly unique, to have God in common.