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U p F r o n t
By Karl Keating
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This Rock
Volume 3, Number 10
 October 1992 
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When I met the Holy Father in March, I asked him to bless a few religious articles--rosary, medals, a pectoral cross. The last I found the day before at a religious goods store near where I was lodging. No, I had no episcopal ambitions. (If I ever had any, I lost them after reading a chapter in Frank Sheed's autobiography; the chapter's title was "I Lose My Awe of Bishops.")
I simply liked the artwork. The cross is about three and a half inches tall and is finely worked from brass. At the end of each arm is a round carnelian. In the center, cut into the brass, is the acronym "IHS." Around all the outer edges are beadlike protuberances. The cross hangs on my bulletin board, just above my computer.
It is a reminder to me not just of the Crucifixion, not just of this pope, but of the Church as the historical extension of Christ. The workmanship of this cross, the small hammer marks, the rills in the metal, the dull glow of the stones--these remind me that, just as the Church isn't merely a spiritual organization, we aren't merely spirits.
We also are (not have, but are) bodies, and so is the Church. What this pectoral cross tells me, daily as I glance at it, is that God took flesh, was incarnated, came into history at a certain time and in a certain place. This cross proclaims that we are, as Sheed put it, spirits enfleshed and flesh enspirited.
I find that consoling--and liberating.
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