A Crucifix of Grace

Friday, Oct. 14, 2016

Before I went on pilgrimage last month, I mentioned to a friend that I was headed to Rome. Her eyes lit up, and she asked if I would take her crucifix and touch it to the tomb of Saint Peter because, as a Discalced Carmelite, it is unlikely that she will ever go herself. 

Only after I agreed did my friend tell me that she received the crucifix the same day as her Carmelite habit, and “we pin our beloved crucifix to our habit and we wear it 24 hours.”

Then Sr. Therese unpinned the crucifix from under a fold in her habit and handed it to me.

Seeing how much the request meant to her, I didn’t have the courage to tell her that I have an absolute knack for losing jewelry, especially anything with sentimental value. So there I stood, my sweating palm holding one of this cloistered nun’s few worldly possessions, and a precious one at that.

Heart pounding, I took the crucifix home and put it on a sturdy silver chain my mother loaned me. The Thursday I left for the airport, I slipped it over my head. My prayer that I wouldn’t lose it was the first of many I said while holding that crucifix. The next came not many hours later, when the four of us pilgrims flying from Salt Lake City to La Guardia were delayed by a mechanical problem and missed our connecting flight. They put us on standby and said that if we were lucky, we might catch a flight by Saturday.

I held the crucifix and prayed with all my might. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all four of us got on the next plane to Rome.

One of the first things I did after landing was touch that crucifix to the Holy Door at Saint Paul Outside the Wall. I wore it through all of the other Holy Doors, as well. I had it on during the Mass in Saint Peter’s Square at which Mother Teresa of Kolkata was canonized, and I prayed with it at the Convent of San Damiano and the two basilicas in Assisi, and at all of the other holy sites we visited.

Meanwhile, while wearing that crucifix, I fell on a cobblestone street, but got up without so much as a bruise. I dropped my 35mm Nikon right on its lens, but it was undamaged except for a shattered filter. My mother had emergency surgery while I was away, but it was successful, and I was able to get back five hours earlier than scheduled, so I was there shortly after she got home from the hospital.  

I attribute all this to Sr. Therese’s crucifix. Not that I consider it an amulet, but I do believe the power of the innumerable prayers she said while wearing it somehow protected me. Or perhaps God extended his care to me because I was doing my friend a favor. Or maybe the prayers I myself said while wearing that crucifix were responsible for averting adversity.

What I do know for certain is that, wearing it, I arrived safely home.

I returned the crucifix, but continue to be blessed by its grace. Today Sr. Therese told me that she believes all the saints to whose holy sites I carried the crucifix are with her now, helping her serve our Lord, and she says a short prayer for me each time she looks at her crucifix.

I cannot express how honored I am by her prayers for me. I feel blessed, and undeserving, because I already have been rewarded a hundred times over for the small deed that I did.

It occurs to me that perhaps I should get a crucifix of my own to wear and pray with, in the hopes that  one day I can loan it to another pilgrim whose road is different from my own, who will receive similar blessings, and so continue this grace in the world.