*saints and sinners- St John of the Cross

St John of the Cross was involved in the reform movement in Spain among his particular monastic order, the Carmelites. Kidnapped, imprisoned and beaten by a group of rival monks he penned the poem found below about this experience.

St John of the Cross was excommunicated by one pope during his lifetime for his work of reform but subsequently canonized by papal decree 131 years after his death.

I Cobbled Their Boots

How Could I love my fellow men who tortured me?

One night I was dragged into a room
and beaten near death with
their shoes

striking me hundreds of times
in the face, scarring me
forever.

I cried out for God to help me, until I fainted.

That night in a dream, in a dream more real than this world,
a strap from the Christ's sandal
fell from my bleeding
mouth,

and I looked at Him and He
was weeping, and
spoke,

"I cobbled their boots;
how sorry
I am.

What moves all things
is God."

History, and the realization of Christ's kingdom among us ultimately prove us all to be both saint and sinner. How else can a man be found the most egregious of sinners (excommunitcated) only to be named as the noblest of saints (canonized)? How else can one pope defame in the name of Christ and another acclaim as the purest of instruments of Christ? Is one wrong and one right? Or somehow, in some mysterious way where God moves all things, are they both wrong and right?

And in the middle of all history, we have a Lord who IS Truth Itself, who weeps for cobbling their shoes, apologizes for their actions, and dies for their (and all of our) sins.