There is something striking, I find, about the distinctly different ways in which two saints who are the Christ-bearers par excellence, are represented: Mary, the Mother of God, pregnant with a child that spells holiness beyond all telling, and Saint Christopher, the giant man weighed down by the same child on his shoulders. Yet, in their different ways of Christ-bearing, these two still witness to the same holy calling: to bear Christ, on our own journey through time — whether mysteriously hidden and growing deep within us, or, sometimes at least, visibly weighing us down, as a heavy load on our shoulders. Christopher, in picking up what he thought was but a small child, certainly found God to be more than he could bear, at least on his own. Mary, on the other hand, after the surprise visit by the angel, encountered God resting lightly, imperceptively, deep within.
I wonder how each of us journeys through life, Christ-bearing in our own specific ways. And I wonder what Christ-bearing – always embodied, particular, cognizant of the context we have to live within — will look like for each one of us, as we face the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, which also happens to be the tenth anniversary of 9/11.
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