Our Lady of the Socks

One of the genuine mystical beauties of religious life is the mingling of the highest mysteries with the most plain ordinariness of daily life. St. Teresa put it best when she famously exclaimed that entre los pucheros anda el Señor, usually translated as "God walks among the pots and pans." (The Foundations, 5:8)

My favorite local example of this is the window sill down the hall, across from the washer and dryer for the brothers on this floor. On it is a statue of Our Lady, and she is perpetually surrounded by rosaries that have become lost and impossibly tangled in the wash, as well as an ever-revolving collection of unmatched socks.

The Incarnation of the Word, which is at the heart of our Christian confession, teaches us that in the humility of God, the divine Presence is to be found here on earth, hidden in the ordinary. Today, on the Ascension of the Lord the angels asked the apostles, "Why are standing there looking at the sky?" We might occasionally ask the same question of ourselves in our own prayer, when the Word and Spirit of God has already willed to descend to us and hide among us down here.