From my book in progress:
Every Day Holy Day
Standing at the edge of Sacred Cenote at the ancient Mayan temple city of
Chichen-Itza, I stared at the vibrant green water nearly 30 meters beneath
me. I knew that archaeologists had recovered artifacts of gold, jade,
pottery and human sacrifice from this alarmingly placid sinkhole, where Mayan
priests, hoping to court the favor of the gods, had tossed their helpless
victims who often included children. Just a few steps away, I could hear
the cacophony of tourists buying cheap souvenirs and bottled water, but at the
rim of the well, silence prevailed.
I understood why. The very rocks and cliffs seemed to have absorbed the fear
and terror of those who had died and now, centuries later, their feelings
reverberated, forcing even the most oblivious sightseer to silence.
Because of the horrors committed there, the place wasn’t holy, in the way
that a great Cathedral is, but it was still sacred. It was a location where the
veil between now and eternity was stretched so thin I could almost reach
through it.
For me that is one definition of sacred.
I’ve felt that same sense at San Clemente in Rome, as I climbed down layers
of excavation from the 12th century basilica where St. Clement is buried,
through a fourth century church, to an altar to the Roman cult god Mithras and
finally to the spring where the pre-Romans worshipped unknown deities.
I’ve also had that feeling at the oldest church in my town, where Mass has
been offered every day for nearly 100 years. When I enter the soft
darkness, broken only by rainbow shafts from the stained glass windows, I know
that I am in a place where the human and the divine intersect.
Reflecting on the sacred places I’ve visited, I think I understand that a
location becomes sacred, not by declaration, but through honest and sincere
prayer, even when, because of lack of knowledge, that prayer isn’t directed to
the Triune God.
The Cenote at Chichen-Itza isn’t sacred because the Mayan priests declared
it to be so, nor because of the sacrifices that took place there, nor because
of the gods that were worshipped there, but because, at the moment of their
deaths, individual souls cried out to their Creator, seeking mercy, salvation
and hope and, at the moment of those deaths, their Creator answered.
San Clement is sacred because for thousands of years, people have been
coming to that spot, seeking to do the will of God as they understood him, even
when they believed that will involved slitting the throat of a bull and washing
its blood way with spring water.
St. Mary’s in my town is sacred, certainly because the Sacrifice of the Mass
is and has been offered there so many times, but also because countless prayers
from countless pilgrims on life’s spiritual journey have been said in its pews,
giving an ordinary city block a sacred dimension.
This power to transform the ordinary into the sacred isn’t the prerogative
of priests and saints. It’s something we all possess. By the way we
focus our attention on the divine, we can turn our homes, yards, even our cars
into sacred spaces.
Summer is a wonderful time to work on this transformation because during
this season, doors and windows are left open, meals are eaten on porches, and
evenings are spent under the stars. We experience a fluidity between in
and out which can become a living example of how the mundane can become sacred
by our actions, intentions and our prayers.
This day, I urge you to infuse your own physical spaces with the intention
of allowing the divine to permeate. Using the example of Brother Lawrence
who says, “It is a great delusion to think our times of prayer ought to differ
from other times. We are as strictly obliged to cleave to God by action in the
time of action as by prayer in the season of prayer,” we can gradually alter
our environment so that when someone enters it, they immediately know they are
stepping into sacred space.
