Saturday of the Third Week of Advent
A number of years ago, I visited the Indianapolis Children’s museum. I loved it. Even as an adult I found so much of the museum engaging and educational. One highlight was the arch building. They had big foam blocks that kids (or big kids) could use to start the arch. Each block was more angular than the next. While trying to balance two wavering, teetering pillars you had to complete your arch by putting in the last piece, the keystone. As I read the O’ Antiphon connected to today’s readings I was reminded of that experience and found the title, “keystone of the Church” resonating within me.
The first place that resonance took me is the divisiveness in the church. Before placing the keystone in the foam arch at the children’s museum there is a good chance one half of the arch will collapse into the other. It is only with the keystone in place that the pressure applied by both side begins supporting the structure. So too in the Church, when we sideline Jesus in favor of our personal agendas and pet projects, we wobble all over the place trying to take out the other side. It is only with Christ in the middle, as the keystone, that our differences of approach can serve the ministry of the Church.
The second place the resonance took me was the ministry we do. It can be easy to get so busy “doing Church” that we put a ministry, initiative, or project at the middle of our arch. But those things are all cut to be the legs of the arch and not the keystone. With them as the focal point our arch will fall. It is especially during busy times like Christmas that we need the reminder that all of the activity of Church comes from and flows back to her keystone, Jesus. To paraphrase Pope Francis in one of his earliest addresses as Pope, without Jesus as our keystone, we are just a charitable non-governmental organization.
Finally, Christ as keystone and the celebration of Christmas resonated with me. Jesus is the keystone precisely because he is the collision of God and humanity.
The Church, who has the daunting mission of both serving the world and worshiping God is given a keystone that is God incarnate. This scandalous, radical, messy mystery of Christianity puts the humanity we are to care for and the God we are to worship smack dab in the heart of the Church. When we lose this incarnational focus, problems occur.
O’ Keystone of the Church, as a refiner and purifier, make of us a Church that derives its stability and strength from you. Call us back to the mystery of your incarnation and the mission which flows from it.
- Spencer Hargadon