Written Friday April 13th: 

I just got back from Stations of the cross.  There were children there today, something a little different at the Skete.  

Stations of the Cross at St. Simeon Skete 

People tend to tense up at the thought of children at this service.  They are worried about noises and distractions. 

Os (His Baptism is on Sunday)

But somehow I’m sure that there were plenty of noises and distractions at the first Journey of Crucifixion.  And so it was today -  but nothing outrageous, just normal blurts and squawks of children with the added joy of a little girl sweetly singing the Stabat Mater.   

The Millers at St. Simeon Skete

We try to pretty up the Stations of the Cross, make it antiseptic: Gorgeous paintings that show very little pain.  But the Cross wasn’t pretty.  Neither is humanity - it blares loudly - the good, the bad, and the ugly - the things that we are all made of.  

We try so hard to clean up what goes on at the cross, so we don’t have to think about it.  “Keep the kids quiet”,   “Silence”  When Jesus says take up thy cross and follow me - we want that cross to be light as a feather and sparkling clean like a diamond.  Its not.  We’re not.  

Newton Miller with brother Rudy

Today at the Stations, I was carrying Newt.  He’s a young lad with autism.  I know autism has its complications in his life and his parents lives - but I see it as a different form of reality.  We all have our cross to bear and Newt and his family carry theirs with great care and dignity, getting back up and moving forward if they fall.

Newton Miller 

As I carried Newt from Station to Station, he was quiet but then at one point, he grabbed my face and forced my face in closer towards his face.  Instinctively, I wanted to turn away to look at the plaque of the station we were on  - the fifth station, Simon helps Jesus carry his cross.  But Newt held my face tight and said “Open your eyes”  My eyes were opened but I was looking down.  Again he said “Open your eyes” and as I looked up and my eyes met Newt’s, he was staring deep into my eyes, a penetrating gaze.   They say that he has difficulty communicating, that’s the nature of Autism.

Newton Miller

Jesus is trying to reach out, communicate in everyone, in every circumstance and most of the time He is ignored.  In Newt’s eyes I could see Jesus, quite clearly ...clearer than in the bronze plaques on the wall and Newt had no trouble communicating to me without words, the Jesus Life Prayer of the Nazareth Rosary: “Jesus your life is living in me” 

  

John 14:17
the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

Romans 8:9
You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.

Romans 8:11
And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

1 Corinthians 3:16
Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?

Ephesians 2:22
And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

2 Timothy 1:14
Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

1 John 3:24
Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.