Under My Roof

Right around a year ago I was bedridden for a day and slightly disabled for much longer after I tried to do a back flip at a trampoline park… and failed. I know it was stupid and I’m still a little embarrassed to admit it but in hindsight it had some cool side effects. (Even beyond the obvious lesson in humility.)

First: for a scrupulous perfectionist who’s default is to think that she has to earn love, it was startling and beautiful to see, not only that others care about you when you are weak, but that they also have compassion on you even if the hurt was your own stupid fault.

Second: He wants to enter under my roof.

The trampoline park incident was Saturday night and my friends had to do almost everything for me: help me walk, get all my winter gear on me, even help me lie down once we got back home. And Sunday, although I could manage some minimal hobbling, I couldn’t sit for more than a few minutes and so remained basically confined to my tiny room on the third floor. People were amazing about keeping me company, bringing me food etc. and it wasn’t until some of them basically ordered me to stay in bed instead of trying to make it the 5:30 Mass that I had been hoping to go to that my room started to feel imprisoning and claustrophobic. It was one of the first times I had been alone that day and I was not very happy about it.

As soon as Mass was over, one of my friends came to bring me the Eucharist. He read the Gospel which was the Beatitudes (i.e. a list explaining how an earthly lack can be the opening to much deeper happiness) and we said a few of the Mass prayers. When I said the familiar and already beloved response “Oh Lord I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed” I was sitting on my messy bed, in my familiar and currently disastrously messy little room and the words took an immediate and concrete reality. I was too broken to even walk to the Church next door so He came to me. To my tiny little wreck of a home. And so when I received His body into mine, it was with a new and experiential glimpse of how ridiculous and profound is the Love of the Word made flesh.

I’ve been reflecting on that a lot in the last few days. When I’m feeling weighed down and discouraged by my brokenness I can fall back on these words. They allow me to acknowledge that I am not worthy but then also remind me that He doesn’t wait for me to be worthy before He comes into my heart. He has, He does and He will come under my roof, messy and dark and broken as it is, so that He can love me. I just have to receive Him.

And if I acknowledge that reality that I have seen and tasted, then it demands of me also the faith of the last words – only say the word and my soul shall be healed.