Humble & Strong
In these synodal times, when everyone’s voice is to be heard, we must listen not least to the voices of the saints. What have they to say to us? Cardinal Anders Arborelius asked this question last night at Vadstena, in a Mass celebrated as part of the Nordic Bishops’ Conference. Vadstena is the city of the indomitable St Birgitta. When she made instructions for the abbey church in Vadstena, a remarkable example of theological architecture, full of mystical measures, she insisted that it should be ‘humble and strong’. The Church of our time lives in a state of humiliation; this fact summons us to conversion and renewal. But what about her strength? Often she seems to be embarrassed to display it. All the more important, then, to remember that the strength in question is not hers, but the Lord’s. There is inward work, here, to be done. We shall do it on the right terms if we remember the phrase St Birgitta adopted as her motto: ‘Amor meus crucifixus est’ – ‘Mine is a crucified love’. Are we grounded in this truth?