Living the Gospel in an Affluent Society
by Rembert G. Weakland, O.S.B.

Reflections on the U.S. Bishops' Economics Pastoral given at the 9th Annual Chicago Call To Action Conference, November 1, 1986.

 

So often these days instead of feeling like the Archbishop of Milwaukee, Rembert Weakland, I feel more like St. Sebastian, full of arrows. I remember when I was a young monk, we had table reading and we used to read the martyrology, the lives of the saints. There was one monk -- I identify very much with him -- who the martyrology says was stabbed twenty-five times, eighteen of which were fatal.

Tonight I want to talk about values. I want to discuss the values that we as a church have from our biblical tradition, from our philosophical and theological tradition, and how those values today are so important, either because they conflict with, or because they support, the values of our society. We have to reflect on those values, where they come from, and what happens to them.

We all learn very much from visitors that come to the United States from abroad. Today everybody has to begin a talk by quoting de Tocqueville. Or we quote Charles Dickens in the last century. (We quote him less, because he was less positive.) But I want to begin with a quote from a recent visitor, a person I find very perceptive, John Herriott, who writes for the London Tablet. He was in the United States this year. This is what he had to say when he got back to England, what he wrote about you and me: "One seemed to be in the presence of two value systems only tenuously connected by public relations rhetoric. So much talk of democracy, yet less real political choice that almost any European country offers. So much talk of justice, yet fearsome squalor and poverty alongside the evidences of the affluence and luxury. So much talk of peace, yet such obsessions with the power of the gun. So much talk of an open society, yet a political system whose upper reaches are closed to all but the richest, and dominated by vested business interests. Material standards of life which, lauded as exemplary, are yet incapable of being duplicated elsewhere without bankrupting the world's resources. Pride in the American Revolution, and what hostility toward any other! Pride in American democracy and justice, but deep distrust of their genuine expression abroad."

That's you and me. Just recently, a group of scholars wrote a book called "The American Ethos: Public Attitudes toward Capitalism and Democracy, "(Herbert McCloskey and John Zaylor, 1984, from Harvard University Press) in which they said exactly the same thing. They said one can find two strains of values in the United States, one coming from our democratic principles, and the other from capitalism. (I won't tell you which ones they think are dominant in our present society. I'll let you guess that from your own experience.) They say that these two sets of values in the American ethos are often colliding, and that you and I sometimes don't even avert to the fact that we live in a society with conflicting values. It takes outsiders to point it out to us. They go on to numerate the values they think come from capitalism, old ones about rugged individualism, about thrift and getting ahead, and those that come from democracy, like the values of human dignity and equal opportunity. In addition to that thread of double values that have not been brought together, there's another kind of cleavage in our society concerning values that was pointed out so clearly by Gaudium et Spes-The Church in the Modern World. . This cleavage is between the values in public life and the values in private life. This cleavage also is one which has not been healed. We must heal it in our day.

I begin with this kind of analysis of values because no economic system exists in a vacuum. An economic system influences and affects the whole fabric of society, so that the values in our society are undergirded by the capitalist system. We cannot think that it could be otherwise. The role of the Church is to stand aside from any economic system and see how the values of that system either collide with, or undergird, its own biblical tradition. You and I as Catholics must do that in this moment of history in U.S. society. I would like to think that in doing so, we will be greatly challenged by, and we will also challenge, the society in which we live.

Four marks of church

I want to bring together the values we have as church in four categories. The other day I attended a Byzantine service in the Greek Orthodox Church. The youth had prepared a sign. It was the perfect sign for what is church, the perfect sign for my talk. They had four Greek words on the sign, and I couldn't tell you where to begin, because the words were in a circle. That really means that all four are necessary. But I will begin with the one that said koinonia". "Koinonia" means fellowship. (I don't like that word fellowship. It is not only sexist, but also a bit trite.) Perhaps the better word is bonding, or communion, that kind of unity of mind and spirit that St. Paul talks about, that is church. Then, the word at the top of
the circle was "leiturgia". You don't even have to be Greek to know what that means: worship. Our church is a worshiping community, an assembly of people who worship together. The third word in the circle was "diakonia". Again we know that Greek word: "diakonia" means serving, a serving church. Now all those three words I immediately resonated with. I have preached often on those three aspects of church. But the fourth word, at the bottom of the circle, was one I had never preached on. "Martyria" -- the same as our word martyrdom, but a word which really means witnessing, a witnessing church. What I'd like to do this evening is to take those four aspects of what it means to be a disciple of Christ, called to be church, and look at the values there. Then together we can examine how those values support, or conflict with, our
capitalist system, and what you should be doing, in your own lifestyle, and in your own world, to reinforce those values of church.

Koinonia

I begin with "koinonia" -- bonding. The word we use in the Economic Pastoral is "solidarity". That word was not invented by Lech Walesa. It is an old word, much used by Catholic social teachers in the last century in Germany. It is probably the best: word to represent "koinonia" for us. We like that word in the Pastoral, and we have left it in, even though some of our critics wanted us to use instead words like "free associations" or "collaboration". Solidarity is the strong word we want to keep. But solidarity as we use it, and as it should be used, is not just a solidarity among the "saved", the believers. After Gaudium et Spes, there is a new solidarity with the world, and with all people in this world. Perhaps the Economic Pastoral has tried to underline that value by calling again for a concern for the common good, the common good of every person on this planet. That common good is a hard thing to define, but I think you and I know deep down inside that it means the wellbeing of every person on this planet, what makes that person able to grow as a human being. This concept of common good or solidarity challenges to the core the capitalist thought of rugged individualism. I don't see why I should deny that. It is true. And I would have to say also to Bill Buckley: if loving and helping one's neighbor is socialism, then long live socialism, because that's in the Bible!

Our letter is permeated with this concept of solidarity, the concern one must have for others and not just for self. Because of that we have a chapter hidden in the middle that to me is the prophetic chapter: chapter four on new collaborative models. We feel that collaboration is just as good an economic principle as competition. We must begin to reinforce collaborative models. In recent weeks Psychology Today had a very good lengthy article on collaboration as more productive than competition. Rut that concept of working together for the common good, of being together, is also important for political, not just economic achievement. For this reason, I tell you straight out: I was not upset when the fundamentalist preachers attacked our Economic Letter, because a letter that is based on the value of solidarity goes totally contrary to the idea of forming a church in front of a television screen. There is no such thing as an electronic church. That's a misnomer. That's religion as entertainment, and it can be very .inspirational, but it Is not church. Church means rubbing elbows, church means getting your hands dirty, church means being next to other human beings

Solidarity only makes sense today if it means solidarity with every person on this globe. I would love to yell that from the housetops. God loves every Russian as touch as God loves every American. You've got to believe that. That's religion. That's what: faith is about. And God also loves every Ethiopian. The starving Ethiopian on TV is loved as much as us dieting middle-class Americans. It is a hard concept for its as we tend to be very provincial in our thinking but solidarity with the world means solidarity with every human being on this planet.

This kind of "koinonia" also means that our Church, if it' is going to be in solidarity, has to be a healing church. We have to seek unity in healing, not competition, as church. There's no way oat of that. We have to be a healing church. We also have to be a prophetic church, in the sense that we are a church with special concern for the poor, the weak, and those who get lost In society, those who are in any way hurting. If we want to be true to the covenant, both old and new, we must be concerned in a special way with the poor and 'hurting. The mark of a believer, the value that we hold dear is that we sense that we must reach out and be the voice of the voiceless That's why you and I should be shocked at what another foreigner coming to the United States said to us at one of our hearings. I must say that when this economist from Brazil said this, I bristled. Everyone around the table bristled. He said that when he comes to the U.S., what he sees is economic apartheid I That's a strong word, and at this moment in history, when you hear it you brace yourself. But he was Haying something rather profound. We do live in reservations. The rich live in certain suburbs. Our poor live in certain central city areas. And we don't cross boundaries. In fact, if people from central city Milwaukee wander into almost any suburb at nine at night, they are taken off the street And I wonder how many people from the suburbs have ever been to central city after dark, or even during daylight. This division is unchristian, and we cannot live with it. Our value system says: those people, every one, as foreign as they seem to me, are dear to God, and have that same dignity in the eyes of the Lord that I have. That is why you and I cannot tolerate any social Darwinism But I warn you that as the years go on, as we become more and more an automated computerized society, the division will be between the bright and the not so bright. The IQ will slowly begin to divide our society in ways never known before. We must be watchful For this social Darwinism creeping upon us.

Koinonia, fellowship, solidarity, concern for the weak! These concepts challenge the society In which we live, and must become a part of your thinking processes as church.

Leiturgia

Leiturgia. Liturgy. A worshiping community. It is this part of church that keeps us from becoming the Eagles, the Moose, the Vets. It is this element that should make Call to Action different from

any other "call to action": being based in a worshiping community You and I must be challenged over and over again by God's Word. We have to live with that challenge That makes us different. It means that we come to hear that Word of God proclaimed to us, preached to us, reflected upon. Being a worshiping community, we find our sense of values in the Word of God. Our sacramental system, it seems to me, points out to as that the bonding that takes place is something far deeper than you and I on our own could ever realize. More than ideas binds is together. Bonding in Christ makes as one in Him. Therefore it must extend, as His mission did, to everyone. If we don't get that sense of being rooted in a worshiping community, we will end up with a social gospel that will soon deteriorate.

The only way we keep that social gospel alive is by worshiping together. The worshiping community creates that kind of action. I encourage you to consider how important that aspect of your life should be. As an old liturgist, I like to put it this way: all our prayer should be personal, but never private. If you catch on to that, you'll understand what it means to be a member of church. Personal means that it changes me, converts me, radically alters my way of thinking. But it's not private, not my own little religion, my own little relationship to God. Church is always being with the others. That is the hardest part about being church. It would be so easy if we could pick the people we want, and get rid of the rest. But church is being with others.

Diakonia

Diakonia. Serving. Call to Action is already very aware of the serving church. That dimension has been a part of your history, and is probably not the part I have to emphasize the most. But I would like to emphasize that being a serving church is not something over and above the real thing. The serving church is part of the essence of what it means to be church. The church serves society. Gaudium et Spes !it the very first chapter contains a magnificent passage about how the church should relate to the world as servant, just as Christ was servant, never hovering above with all the answers but rather dialoguing with that world, hearing the griefs and pain of that world, and being a part of it. We have to engage the world in dialogue.

One of the most magnificent speeches of late was given by Cardinal Kim of Seoul, Korea at the 75th anniversary of Maryknoll. He spoke of what it means for church to relate to world. It all comes from the 1971 Synod in Rome and its document, "Justice in the World", which says that working for justice is a constitutive part of what it means to be church. Cardinal Kim reflects on that, and says it so clearly that I want to quote him:

"There is much talk of the renewal of, or within, the Church. Many times the impression is given that this is an internal matter, something the Church can do by itself in isolation from the world. Sometimes it is even stated that the Church must renew herself before she can serve the world. I have great doubts about this. I think rather that the authentic renewal of the Church can come about only in and through her total dedication to respond to the needs of the world. In this sense the world--all its problems, all its pains, all its trials, all its injustices, all its darkness, all its despair--is an essential part of the salvation of the Church itself. The very last words of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew are the words of a promise, the promise to be with us always as we move forward and go to the world in mission. His presence is the source of renewal. His spirit keeps us alive, and keeps us serving. These two movements of renewal and of service are part of His one work in the Church. It is therefore at this point of contact between the world and the responding Church that the Kingdom of God is continually being born, both in the Church and in the world."

That's a powerful statement. You and I cannot be armchair football players. We have to become involved, because that is what it means to be a serving church.

Martyria

Martyria. Witnessing. Take it as "martyrdom" if you are feeling bad today. But we have to witness And you and I know that witnessing is probably the hardest part of all. Witnessing is the sermon. It preaches loader than any of our words. And witnessing cannot be falsified by p.r. rhetoric. Witnessing must be genuine. If it isn't it soon catches up with you. Witnessing is an essential part of that mission to the world.

I want to discuss witnessing in two ways: the church as witness, and the individual Christian as witness.

First, the church as witness. Here I want to say something that I hope doesn't scandalize you. I am sick and tired of perfectionism I don't think the Church witnesses by being a perfect society. I think that's fake. The Church witnesses by being a broken society that is seeking healing. You and I are all on "excellence" binges. If you want to sell. a book today, just put the word "excellence" in the title. It's the new kind of medieval theology. Even in business everything is "excellence". I'd love to write a book on how to be a stupid bumbler like me, and how to live in community that is full or' broken people. That is how we witness. We witness because we want to try to help broken people. We don't witness because we are perfect. When we try to do so, we usually end up with egg on our face. It is important for the Church today to realize that truth, because for the first time, at least in the United States, we are out on the public stage with the bright lights on us, and all our brokenness is in the newspapers tomorrow morning. That is the way it is, and that is the way it- is going to be, so get ready. I am going to he vulgar here and tell you what my novice master told me when I became abbot primate. "The higher the monkey climbs on the pole, the more you see of his --- !"

In a way that is where the Church is and where the Church will be. We are now in the limelight. We want to lake our role in that society and we want to minister to that world. But we minister as broken people, People in need constantly of reform. People that have to listen to that world out there, to the griefs of that world. And I'll be honest with you. Often we don't know what to prescribe. All we can do is hear and stand next to people who are hurting. That-. is hard for us as church. But that is what witnessing is about. Witnessing is simply saying there are times when all we can do is pray. What's wrong with that? All we can do is ask God for the healing we need. We don't have all the answers. Now I am not saying that therefore we can be a church that is unjust, or a church that doesn't have it-; act together. The struggle is important. We joust seek to be a just church But we - must also be very realistic. We must never become Pelagians We simply cannot do it ourselves Therefore we must be a humble, serving church one which tries to bring some hope in a hopeless; situation.

We have to be a church that is trying both to heal and to be healed. If you come with the attitude that you are perfect, and don't require healing, you are faking. But when you come with the idea that you need healing, you can begin to do something. We must be willing to admit the human condition in which we find ourselves. Today more than ever before, you and I know all the things in the Church that need healing and all the areas where justice must touch us. We must first admit that we need healing. Then we can begin to be healed within.

Church as prophetic

If we want to be a witnessing church, we have to be a prophetic church. I am not at all ashamed --in fact, I'm proud--that people immediately saw the Economic Pastoral as a document for the poor. That wasn't where we started out, but, being perceived as such, I can only say amen. If the Lord has helped us to see this as a way of casting light on the needs of the poor, amen! That's good. That's being prophetic at this moment of history. We will have to keep that up, because the p.r. rhetoric out there is incredible. The new definitions of the poor keep doing away with the poor. You keep redefining poverty, and then it goes away. But go to any part of this city, and you will see that redefining doesn't change anybody's life. The poor are among us. You and I must continue to be prophetic against those who with their rhetoric would ignore that injustice. As a church, you and I must continue to witness to the dignity of every human being. We must witness, not just talk. I am good at talking it. It is another thing to witness to it. Witnessing will often mean getting your hands dirty. I don't know any way of witnessing to social justice without getting involved in the conflict. And it is never all white and all black. It is always a mixture of gray, and streaky gray at that. You never get the kind of clarity you might want. But a Church that wants to preach dignity must also show it, within itself and outside.

I'm convinced that the most prophetic passage in both testaments is the Sermon on the Mount. I also think it is the most revolutionary passage in the whole of Scripture. When Christ took those thousands of people who had no jobs--(they had time to go out and listen to him!)--the hungry, the lame, and stood on the hillside and told them that every one of them was sacred to God, that every hair on their head was counted, that they were not to worry about tomorrow because their heavenly Father was worried about them, that is revolutionary!

Just imagine what happens if you take thousands of people whom society considers nobodies, and you tell them that they are somebody, that they are important, and you drill it into their heads that they are equal to the rich in the eyes of God. You have created a revolutionary situation! There is no way out of that. The role of the Church today is to preach and to show that every person has that human dignity. Then gradually people begin to get the incentive they need to live a full participating life in society. I don't believe incentives come by extra money. In fact I often laugh when I am told that the only way to create incentives is by a million dollar bonus. If that is where we are, there is something wrong with our value system. But you give people a sense of their dignity, and that comes from taking seriously the-Sermon on the Mount.

So the Church must witness. But what about the witness of the individual Christian? What about you and me as persons? After reading the Economic Pastoral, so many of you have asked me: what does it mean for me as an individual? How am I to witness in this capitalist society, this consumer society? What am I supposed to be doing?

I want to begin this section with a story. A Methodist pastor in Milwaukee went down to Nicaragua about two years ago for a dialogue with Methodists down there. He began with the question: how can you be a Christian and at the same time a communist? Everyone started to laugh. He wondered why they were all laughing, so he repeated the question, thinking maybe his Spanish was bad. How can you be a Christian and at the same time a communist? They replied, "That's funny, because our first question to ask you is: 'How can you be a Christian and at the same time a capitalist?"' That means that in the perception of those people, our value system is totally contrary to the Gospel. Now that is sad, because I think you and I would say that is not true. That's not who we are. But somehow our witness has been deficient. We have not been able to project outside the values we hold dear.

So I have a few things to say, but I do this with some trepidation. If there is anything I hate, it is for someone to tell me how to live as a bishop. I am always afraid of going on retreat and having a priest preach it, because I know what he is thinking. "This is my captive audience, and it's my chance to say all those things." I get leery about that. As a Benedictine I used to get very upset when guest preachers would come in on St. Benedict's Day and tell us how to live as Benedictines, when all they had read was the articles we wrote in the Catholic Encyclopedia! There is always some personal hesitancy in telling other people about personal values and how to live them out.

To begin with, there is no one way. There are as many ways as there are people. Every person is in a different situation. All I can say to you is: grow up. You are going to have to solve this puzzle yourself. Nobody can give you an absolute formula. I do wish, however, that today we had, not more Benedicts, but more Francises. I sense on this All Saints' Day that the saint who would tell us something about how to live today would be St. Francis.

Lifestyle values

I want to mention some values that you must have in your personal life style. First, you must be a sharing person. You say: I am. I know you are. I know that you get tax deductions. The test of any sharing, though, is when you don't receive anything back. Isn't that what Jesus tells us? The real test of sharing is when you get no reward for it. Even the pagans do things for rewards. You and I must somehow become filled with a new kind of radical charity. I say that without mitigating it at all. When I started the work on the Economic Pastoral, I was having trouble with fundamentalists during the question and answer periods. (You and I always have trouble with fundamentalists because they quote the Bible, and we Catholics don't know the Bible.) I asked my friend Jim Wallis of Sojourners magazine what to do. Jim said, "It's easy. Just memorize the Sermon on the Mount, and regardless of what they quote from Revelation or Daniel, bring them back to the Sermon on the Mount, and make them swallow it literally!" The same applies to us. We must go back to those statements of Jesus, and not water them down. "Woe to you rich!" Those are powerful things in the Lucan gospel. You and I have slid over them very gracefully, but we have to get back to a radical charity.

Certain things in life hit you so powerfully that they change you. When I was in first year college, for example, I read Christ our Brother, by Karl Adam. That book slew me spiritually. It made a whole new world for me. Well, in 1972 Karl Rahner published an article on North and South, and the relationship of the north nations and the south nations. That article has stayed with me ever since. It is the most uncompromising article I have ever read. It says that when the history of our era is written, we of the north nations in the 20th century will be condemned, because we did not have the guts--with all our wealth--to face up to the problems of poverty and destitution in the Third World. It is a powerful article, and it has stayed with me ever since. You remember the famous quote of Paul VI: how can you go to bed with a full stomach knowing that somebody out there is starving?

That sort of thing must continue to grip you. I don't say that you have to have all the answers. But if your conscience isn't bothered when you hear texts like that, you don't understand what the Gospel is all about. Those texts should haunt you, so that you want to do something about it.

I am beginning to think that most of us never learned the biblical sense of justice. What does it mean that other people have rights to economic survival, to health, to food? When the bishops of Brazil last year said to their people, "You can take from the rich if you are hungry," what do you and I think about that? These are bishops telling their people that they can take from the rich! That is the kind of distributive justice that hits us, and hurts us, and we have to think twice: what values are underneath all of this? What should you and .I be doing?

I come from a poverty family. We were on relief in the Thirties. Thirty-eight dollars a month: eight dollars for rent, and then thirty dollars for food and clothing for seven people, my mother and six of us. My mother would never let us waste anything. What you put on your plate, you ate. I never understood why, but she would say: "Think of those poor starving babies in China." I could never understand how my eating that food was going to help the starving babies in China. But somehow there was a connection of values there about not wasting food. It is still with me. Today when I see kids -- and even adults -- throw stuff away like mad, it just hurts! If you have ever visited starving countries, something like that comes back to haunt you. What does justice mean in terms of distribution? The only answer is to begin to work together to solve the injustice.

Then there is the right use of earthly things, respecting them. St. Benedict in his Rule says that the tools of the monastery should be seen as extensions of the vessels of the altar. That's a beautiful thought. What happens in the Eucharist extends out to all earthly things. The incarnational principle is that they all have a Christian aim and scope. It means that we do things differently, we touch things differently, we respect things, not just people. I am sure that is why Benedictines became known for their love of art and music and architecture, and didn't take the fourth vow of ugliness like some other orders! That right use of things is. important, because ugliness is another for m of poverty. God did not create us to be poor. He created us to help the poor.

Then there is detachment from things. I used to be ashamed to talk about detachment when I first became a bishop. I was afraid the people of Milwaukee would think I was trying to make nuns of them, or monks, or, as we say, "nunks". But what do we do with detachment at this moment in our history? I think the reason why you and I are afraid of words like detachment is that we still live in Augustinian concepts, Platonic images, where detachment means that you separate yourself from the world and go into some kind of nirvana. And by the way,--and I say this very seriously,-- there is a new Augustinianism permeating the Church today. I sense it everywhere. It is almost as if the world is so evil, we are going to pull back from it and create our little perfect world. We are going to get rid of the divorced, the gays, and everybody else that gives us problems. We are going to pull back and live in our own perfect society. Such a tendency is out there, a total negativism toward the world, and therefore you detach from it and get above it, a little bit transcendent. That is all foolishness. Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, says there is only one model now: compenetrability. You and I live in a world that is mixed. The wheat grows up with the tares. If we detach ourselves, the detachment is for the world, not from the world. We have to learn how that works. In the early Church, fasting and alms were' always linked. Fasting--detachment from something--was so that you could give it to the poor. The two belong together. The concept of fasting without almsgiving makes no sense. You and I just wait and eat it tomorrow! Right? I saw that so often in the college back home. The kids would go without a meal, and then go downtown to eat. Somehow that was supposed to help the poor. No, fasting and almsgiving must go together. Our fasting must be a reaching out to others. Detachment is for the world, not from the world. With that sort of unselfishness, we can begin to change the values of our consumeristic society with all of its waste.

In other words, our own personal conversion should become a way of helping others. This gets back to that unselfishness which is true koinonia.

Consumer goods

I haven't told you much about how to live. All I've given you is a few ideas for you to mull over. You have to decide what they mean for you in particular. I do it for myself every day. Just recently I got a new car. For the winters in Milwaukee I need a car that is going to get me around for 25,000 miles and not fall down. If there is anything I have learned as a bishop, it is that the confirmation must start on time! So I need a good car. Fine. I have no problem with that. I also have no problem with my having a computer. It's a cheapy, but it gets the work done. I have no
problem with my IBM typewriter. My books? They bother me a bit. I have far too many, but I love them. That's my weakness. And my grand piano. Ahh, there's something I have to think about. But for the well-being of the diocese, that's important! You have to think these things out. As a monk I didn't have to think about any of this. Things were just bought for me. But now suddenly I have to think about everything I do, where I live, how I live, the things in my life. But the very fact that I am worried about it is already 50% of the game. You have to do the same. The old economists always made a distinction between needs and wants. I keep that in mind all the time. Do I really need this, or am I just giving in to the advertising 'wants' syndrome, like the children who see things on television, then go to the store, and--poor Mom and Dad!--want everything? I keep going over these things in my mind. If I can keep all that straight day by day, maybe that is all that is asked of me in my lifestyle right now, to enable me to serve in the right way.

I want to close with a story. Three young trees were growing up side by side in the forest. Each tree was dreaming. Each tree was dreaming in a very selfish way. One tree said, "I want to be a part of a luxurious house, where all kinds of fancy well-dressed people will come and stroke me and say, 'What beautiful paneling!"' The second tree said, "When I grow up, I want to be the mast of a ship, where everyone will see me, and I will carry the flag." The third tree said, "I don't care for the sea, but I want to do the same thing on land. I want-- to be the top of a great tower, so that all who pass by will look up and say, "Ah, that must have been a great tree." Now the first tree that wanted to be part of a luxurious house was chopped down and made into a manger for a baby. The second tree that wanted to be the mast of a ship was cut down and made into a simple plank where someone could sit in the bark and teach. The third tree that wanted to be a tower was cut down and made into the beam of a cross.

God bless you.