At no time do we stand closer to the mystery, the hiddenness, the total otherness of God than we do at this hour, at this moment, at this cross. At no other time do we see how completely not-us God is. This cross isn’t something we know or understand or have room for in our world or in our lives. Not one of us would do this or allow this. We would gladly die to stop this from happening to someone we love, most of all to our beloved child. There’s no room in our world for this. How do we approach this day, how do we begin to understand it?
Here, at this cross, is given, yet again, the opportunity to discover that today’s servants of oppression—the poor, the victims of war, famine, and callous indifference, the dis-valued of the earth, the others—that these are the clearest face of Christ for us today. In their suffering, we may see the very crucible in which the work of God is now being forged—for God’s work is to bring to all creation the truth of his Servant, and so to bring his vision of hope renewed to all humanity.
Our founder, Fr. Hoelle, embraced the path of servant leadership. He chose faithfulness over security, chose self-giving love over self-protection, chose painful honesty over comfortable denial of such suffering in our Dayton community. For 58 years, his vision of being a “little light in the window” welcoming the stranger lives on this very day in the hearts of Dakota Center’s staff. “Almighty Father, look with mercy on this your family for which our Lord Jesus Christ was content to be betrayed and given up into the hands of wicked men and to suffer death upon the cross; who is alive and glorified with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever Amen.”
