Close enough. Close enough.

In the hospital, after opening up your heart, the heart surgeon says to you in the recovery room, “Close enough,” as you choke on your tiny ice cubes.

“Close enough.” Never said out loud, but it can so easily be expressed in so many different ways.

For us Catholics, as it may be for other religions, it’s often safely, narrowed down to formulas People say, “I said my rosary!” “I went to Mass!” Nothing transforming or enlightening with those statements or recitations. Please note those sad two verbs, “said” and “went.” They are words showing completion, finished, and being done. “Praying” is the correct verb and our response to the meaning of this Christ-Cross.

Where’s the personal formation found in those recited formulas? Or, does it easily remain recited formula prayers, said again and again, without the accompanying Christ-challenging ongoing personal formation?

Nailing and unnailing the Cross is a lifelong challenge precisely because of its power, a unifying power between you and Christ. (But that’s not true, I’ll get to that later.) The Cross is all about shaking things up. Shaking up your life. Or, better said, shaping and reshaping up your life by confronting selfishness and sin and then nailing your entire being with the grace and love given by God through our surrendering to God. We can so often think that death/cross/resurrection as though that happened only once. It happens every single day of our lives…those same three exact words sacrificed by Christ and now offered for us to copy. Can you copy Christ on the Cross? “Imitation is the greatest form of flattery,” or so we’re told.

The auto mechanic tells you that we rotated your tires. Handing you the bill he says, “It’s close enough.” Just tell me how you feel driving home?

How shall I spend this one brief, singular, God-breathed-in-me life? Shall I hoard it in fear or give it away in hope as Christ did for me? Shall I push suffering aside at all costs and in doing so, push Jesus aside too? Or, is it sufficient and close enough to wearing around your neck an overpriced, gold version of what Jesus did for us?

You know in our conversations we constantly misuse the word Cross. We speak of it in our lives as a burden to be carried. We even say of someone, “Just look at the Cross she has to carry…poor thing!” Doesn’t that suggest that Jesus should have told God, “No, way Jose’” in the garden? Doesn’t that understanding of the Cross erase all of salvation and redemption history? The Christ-Cross is the cross-over from death into life. The cross-over from sin to repentance.

(whispering) I think that’s you and me.

Can I freely and willingly accompany and walk with the one we call “Savior” on the only road that leads to resurrection? “Freely” without that end bargaining with God about whether it’s heaven, purgatory, or hell. “Willingly” since that is the inner yearnings and promptings common to all our lives.

And speaking about verbs, how about those personal nouns, “I” and “you?” People ask me, “If I’m doing Mass next weekend?” I reply, “You do lunch, but I don’t do Mass!” To be Catholic, as the word defines itself, is always about us…never, ever about you or me alone. The collective sacrifice of the Cross is collectively witnessed and then shared with others about our disappointments and trials and then embracingly listening to the stories from others. Transforming our horizontal hardships of the Cross into vertical heaps of hope. As usual, Jesus showed us how this life-thing is done. Transforming the suffering sacrifice of one God-man on a wooden Cross into a joy-filled resurrection.

After your retirement party, you meet with HR, and she tells you about your pension benefit program with the closing words, “Close enough.” Your car takes you to the nearest tavern.

Just keep thinking and meaning but never saying out loud, “Close enough.” Because then you don’t have to engage or take risks. Because it can be pretty risky to take risks. Just ask the guy on the Cross.

Yes, we believe, and we rejoice in the mystery of the salvation Jesus secured for us through his death. But the Cross is not a historical artifact or a necklace adornment. In faith, the Cross is the way forward. Religious wholeness. In faith, this Christ-Cross is our only way forward toward meaningful and purposeful lives.

Well, I’m done. How did I do? Did I hit “the nail on the head” of His Cross? Or was my homily just and only “close enough?