A Visit to San Alberto Hurtado

Today, Saturday June 23, 2007, Irene and I made the cross-city trek to visit the tomb of Chile's 20th-century saint, the Jesuit Padre Hurtado. His caring for the street kids of Santiago grew into Chile's largest charity, el Hogar de Cristo (Christ's Home), and left behind a motto now found on bumper stickers, "Contento, Señor, contento." He also left behind a more challenging observation: "It's good not to harm anybody. It's bad to do nobody good."

In the chapel beside his tomb, looking at the cross, I thought that maybe the reason why I've never been drawn to Jesus (to Christ? I'm so uninstructed that I don't know which is correct) is that I see no reason why we humans should think his suffering special. Thousands of people were crucified before him; thousands after. Presumably his life was no worse than the lives millions of others have lived and will live.

This made me think that maybe in thinking about him I--to speak for no one else--think about my own suffering, which is to say my life, and realize not so much that my suffering has been small but rather that I've made little of value from it.

Christ thus becomes my mocker, not my brother. If he finds something of value in me, it's because his standards are low.