Boulder to Bear

Violence is not completely fatal until it ceases to disturb us.

— Thomas Merton

This week, as we await word of the Boulder shooter's motive, millions of Christians will devote thought to the Passion of Christ.

Catholics, in particular, will recall the crucifixion, Christ's tortured body nailed to the cross.

Catholics have venerated that image for over 1,600 years, often to the point where—pun intended—it crosses with porn. (They weren't always so literal. For 400 years, Catholics simply interposed the Greek letters tau and rho to depict Christ's crucifixion.)

Catholics' intention has always been to display front and center Christ's self-sacrifice, believing it will sustain you on the hard road to glory.

"The crucifix reminds us that there is no resurrection without the cross, and that we are called to pick up our own crosses and follow after Jesus," says the contemporary theologian Philip Kosloski.

But the 20th century monk Thomas Merton warned against such a violent image. "You pray best when the mirror of your soul is empty of every image," he wrote.

Emptying your mind of images is a noble, but "vain task," Merton said. "Only pure love can empty the soul perfectly of the images of created things." And pure love is impossible.

Nonetheless, you must try—and violent images like that of the crucifixion are good ones to start with. 

"The delicate action of grace in the soul is profoundly disturbed by all human violence," Merton said. "The most dangerous violence is that in which we seem to find peace."

If you can't empty your mind of images this week—and who can?—forget the crucified Nazarene's suffering and think about Boulder, lest we forget and find peace in violence.

Christ sculpture courtesy of John Sheridan. The artist donates half his online sales proceeds to Oakland, California's Ceasefire.