Second Incarnation

What if one day the entire body of Christ was struck dumb? Couldn’t write a word. Couldn’t speak a word. Couldn’t even move our lips to mouth one. What then? What would be left?

Our lives.

And what would our lives say? What would they say about who we are and who our God is? What would they say about what we believe? If we were to take away the words, how much of the gospel would the world understand?

Would we discover the world is illiterate? Or that our lives are illegible?

Would the writings on the pages of our lives, which we always took to be literature, turn out to be the scribblings of a preschooler? Or would the pages simply be blank?

“Preach the gospel,” Saint Francis said, “and when necessary, use words.” And he said that, I think, because he realized that the most impactful words are those incarnate in our lives. Words that are made flesh and dwell among the world.